Perspectives
by Sakiku
Summary: Various oneshots in response to prompts from non-kink memes. Ranging from angst to fluff to humor and friendship, from G- to R-rated, from Aburame to Zabuza. Check individual stories for summaries.
1. IMPORTANT

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto, neither the characters nor the plot nor the merchandise nor anything related to it. And I don't make no money from this story. The disclaimer is valid for all chapters in this story so that I don't have to repeat myself every time...

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**IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ:**

This is a collection of one-shots that I have written for various anonymous non-kink memes. (The kinky ones can be found on my AFF. net profile).

At the beginning of every chapter, I have included a

**Character:**

**Prompt:**

**Rating:**

**Warnings:**

template, which should give you enough information about the individual stories.

That said - read and enjoy! (And of course, review!)

Sakiku


	2. Nail Polish

**Character:** Itachi, Kisame

**Prompt:** torture

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** PTSD, Angst, torture

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**Nail Polish**

"You are painting your fingernails. Again."

Itachi didn't look up. He had felt Kisame approach and stand in the doorway several minutes ago, but the larger nin had kept quiet. Until now.

"Hn."

He gracefully dipped his brush into the glossy black liquid and carefully drew it across the nail of his index finger. It was cool and glittered wetly.

_Spikes of pain as they slowly forced the slivers deeper-_

"The last time you painted them was two days ago. Two shitty freaking days ago. We haven't even gone on a mission yet for you to chap your nail polish."

Itachi could hear the exasperation coloring the former mist-nin's voice. This was a long-standing issue between them: Itachi's nail polish, and his tendency to apply it too often, in Kisame's opinion. Nothing had changed since their last time. And the one before that. And before that. So Itachi refrained from dignifying Kisame with an answer the man must have heard plenty of times before.

_First only with their fingers, then with a hammer. A hammer that occasionally missed-_

Breathing evenly, Itachi smoothed the brush across his middle finger on the left.

_They made him watch. Watch as they gradually drove long bamboo splinters deeper and deeper beneath his nails. As if he needed to see to feel their presence scream along his nerves-_

A fist against the door frame, splintering wood but not bringing the whole thing down. "Oh, for- How long are you planning to ignore me in favor of your girly paint-job?" The mist-nin growled.

Kisame didn't take well to people not reacting to his presence. It was something of pride for him, that nobody ever overlooked him. Partly because of his height, partly because of his blue skin and fish-like exterior, partly because of the blood-hungry feel to his enormous chakra. Wherever he went, he stood out and got reactions. So, in the exceedingly rare case he didn't get any reaction, he tended to demand one through violence.

_In the beginning, he had painfully eased out the splinters beneath his nails as soon as they threw him back into his cell. Tried to treat the wounds. Dexterity was important for shinobi. But as soon as they fetched him for another session, they replaced the splinters he had removed (agony beyond agony to torture inflamed and weeping flesh) plus added one more-_

"Until I'm done," Itachi answered monotonously. He didn't want to take the risk of messing up his paint-job, should Kisame be even more confrontational than usual.

He went on towards his fourth finger. He had done this so often that he didn't really need to look anymore to make sure the brush covered the whole nail in a smooth and uniform coat, and yet not spill any color on the surrounding flesh.

_His fingers had swollen to twice their size, making it nearly impossible to bend them, let alone form a fist. He had to swallow down hard on the thought that he might lose some - most, all - of his ability to form seals, to channel chakra. Two of his fingers had gotten infected already. Could ninja function with only eight - seven, six, five - fingers? The pounding of his heartbeat in the tip of his bamboo-clawed fingers was nauseating-_

His pinky was done with in a single swipe. Then came his thumb nail. The last one. The largest. The one that had never healed properly, that was opaque and splintered towards the end. It was almost a blessing that his eyesight had declined so much that he had to do most of it by feel and muscle memory.

_He couldn't help but stare at the purplish-black mess his fingers had turned into, stare at it and try not to be sick-_

There. He was done.

He raised his head and looked into the direction he could see Kisame's blurry outline in. He cocked his head. "Would you like me to paint your nails, too?"


	3. Ninja Battles decided by Card Games

**Characters: **Sasuke, Orochimaru

**Prompt:** What if ninja battles were decided by children's card games?

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** Copious amounts of insanity. Go fish.

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**What if ninja battles were decided by Children's Card Games!**

"Go fish," Sasuke choked out. Sweat was beading on his brow, and the fold of cards in his hand was trembling from the pressure Orochimaru exuded.

They were crouching on the floor of the Forbidden Forest, a spread of cards face-down between them, and each of them holding several more in their hands. At Orochimaru's feet, several quartets of four cards of equal rank had already collected, whereas Sasuke only had one.

It didn't look good for him. Orochimaru was a cunning opponent, who seemed to be able to read every single one of Sasuke's moves before he had even finished thinking them.

The sannin's chalk white face drew into a malicious grin. "I think you are lying, Sasuke-kun," he hissed sibilantly. "I can see your cards. You _do_ have a five."

More sweat beaded on Sasuke's brow, and Sakura, who was perched behind and above him on a tree branch, feared for his life. This woman-man who was not from grass, just was too strong - Sakura was paralyzed in fear, and even her wonderful Sasuke-kun had trouble keeping his cool and suave head.

"You're wrong." Sasuke swallowed heavily. "Want me to verify it?"

He _had_ used a special Ninja Pen to make his nine look like a five, already anticipating that Orochimaru would try to spy on his hand. But that wasn't forbidden, as long as Orochimaru couldn't prove it. And the Ninja Pen's special feature was to dissolve at the slightest touch of Sasuke's chakra - his manipulation would be gone with a simple thought.

Slowly Orochimaru shook his head, and Sasuke took a slow breath. Crisis averted. "My turn. Any Jacks?"

To Sasuke's growing horror, Orochimaru began tsking. "And there I thought you had some potential. When you're bluffing, at least make it a bit more convincing. I've got all four Jacks on my hand. Which means you've broken the rules: you can't ask for a card you don't have. And you know what that means…" A sly smirk spread across Orochimaru's features, which made Sasuke tremble even worse.

How in the world had Orochimaru managed to gather _four_ Jacks when Sasuke already had one? Something incredibly fishy was going on, and Sasuke had a very bad feeling that he was in far over his head this time.

Not once had Sasuke been able to get a glimpse at Orochimaru's cards, despite all the tricks he had learned - only few of them taught in the Ninja Academy. No, not even the powerful techniques of the Uchiha clan could stand up to his opponent. Even the Sharingan had been of little help against his opponent's finesse.

Sasuke was close to despairing. This way, he was never going to catch up to his brother. Itachi had been a genius at playing Go Fish at the age of seven already, and he had only improved in the meantime. Sasuke bet Itachi wouldn't have had any problem with defeating Orochimaru.

Why, when Itachi had been a year older than Sasuke, he had managed to drive their entire clan into collective heart failure with his sheer skill at cards. Only Sasuke had survived, and that only because Itachi had refused to engage him in a game. However, Itachi had made him watch as he defeated every single member of the clan over and over again, and how they suffered a coronary afterwards. It had been the most traumatizing event in his whole life.

Sasuke's hand clenched harder around his cards. No. He couldn't give up now. If he ever wanted to take revenge for the massacre, he couldn't lose to an opponent much worse than his brother.

With shaking fingers, Sasuke withdrew a card from his hand and showed it to Orochimaru. "I- I do have a Jack." Now it was time to see what Orochimaru was going to do. Hopefully he'd back down and give Sasuke his three Jacks, which meant that Sasuke would finally get a second quartet of cards.

The snake-like man merely kept smirking. "Oh, but my dear Sasuke-kun, _I_ have four." He withdrew them to show to Sasuke that he wasn't making an empty claim. "See?"

And indeed, Orochimaru also had a Jack of Clubs. Together with the Jacks of Hearts, Diamonds and Spades. Sasuke's heart thudded hard in his chest as he struggled not to show his sudden feeling of elation. Finally! He had caught Orochimaru at cheating! This was even better than simply getting a quartet!

Barely keeping his excitement in check, he called Orochimaru out. "Yours is false. I call for Verification!"

To his consternation though, the snake's smile never waned. Instead, it only got broader, the golden eyes glinting with malicious glee. "Why, of course! Go ahead!"

Sasuke eyed the snake warily as he flashed through the hand signs to activate the battle-deck's special feature. Every card was imbued with an incredibly complicated seal that could be triggered to verify the card's authenticity. The seal was unique for every deck, and it couldn't be copied or imitated otherwise - a sure-fire way of uncovering fake cards. And being caught at cheating was an automatic loss.

So Sasuke was rightfully wary when Orochimaru didn't do anything to hinder him in touching the snake's Jack of Clubs. And indeed - to Sasuke's horror the card flashed white and displayed the unmistakable signature of the deck and its rank: Jack of Clubs.

With shaking hands, Sasuke went to touch his own card, and he watched in disbelief when it turned brown and quickly crumbled into dry earth. "Wha- How? But- But I had the original one! I drew it from the pool two turns ago!"

"You did?" Orochimaru purred. "Looks to me like you were cheating. And you know what that means."

Sasuke was still staring at the place where his Jack had been, completely shell-shocked. "That's impossible. I can't have lost. I can't!"

"But you did."

Faster than Sasuke could react, Orochimaru's neck elongated and bit Sasuke in the place where neck met shoulder. He screamed and collapsed, barely hearing Orochimaru's parting words.

"Have fun with my little gift, Sasuke-kun! Maybe it will help you keep more alert the next time. You never saw when I switched out your Jack for my Earth Clone despite having your Sharingan acrivated, did you?"

With those words ringing in his ears and the horror of realizing that his brother never would have fallen for such a simple trick, Sasuke slid into oblivion. And the Chuunin Exams continued on in their usual way.


	4. Enter, Mr Roary

**Characters:** Itachi, Sasuke

**Prompt:** Enter Mr. Roary

**Rating:** G

**Warning:** Fluff

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**Freezing**

Itachi blinked several times. Two beady, black eyes were staring back at him, sunk into plush, green fur. Those eyes didn't blink, didn't move, and were slightly frosted over. Not that Itachi would have expected anything alive at sub-zero temperatures. But neither had he expected to be confronted with a stuffed animal in the freezer. A dinosaur, to be exact.

"Sasuke," he called out without removing his gaze from the frozen creature.

As was his wont, Sasuke immediately dropped everything and ran over from where he was playing in the living room, using his strange way of skipping every second step. Itachi hoped he would grow out of that soon, because it was annoying. And noisy. And ninjas weren't noisy. Neither did they skip steps.

"Yes, nii-san?" Sasuke chirped happily, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

Itachi pointed into the freezer. "What is this?"

Without care for his proximity to a well-trained killer, Sasuke squeezed in next to Itachi, to see what he was pointing at. Not that Itachi would ever do anything to harm his brother, but it caused a strange feeling in Itachi's guts to know that Sasuke was completely and utterly unafraid of him.

Sasuke shivered a bit in the cold air streaming out of the open freezer door and took in the problem with one glance. "That's Mr. Roary," he declared.

Judging by the tone of his voice though, Sasuke failed to see how that might be a problem. Itachi raised an eyebrow. "He's in the freezer."

"Uh huh," Sasuke nodded, clearly unperturbed.

The two brothers were standing quietly next to each other for a moment, both of them focused on Sasuke's frozen plush toy. It quickly became apparent that Sasuke didn't think the situation needed any further explanations. Itachi though was of a different opinion.

"And _why_ is he in the freezer?"

"'cause he's a dinosaur." With the same inflection as 'you're stupid because you don't know one of the most obvious things in the world.'

"I see." He didn't. Not even 'not really', but rather 'not at all'. The million-dollar-question was: was it worth the inevitable headache to try and get a more conclusive answer out of his brother?

Sasuke sighed heavily - which Itachi thought should be _his_ prerogative - and looked up at Itachi with a put-out frown. "You don't know anything 'bout dinosaurs, do you, nii-san?"

"They are extinct." That was pretty much the only thing he knew about them, but Itachi wasn't about to admit that. In his opinion, that was all he needed to know about them, too.

Sasuke nodded emphatically. "'xcatly. And why're they extinct?"

Somehow, Sasuke had completely turned the question and answer session on Itachi without his notice. Did that mean that Sasuke had a talent for interrogation?

"Because a huge meteorite fell from the sky and killed them all."

He could see that Sasuke was about to nod again, but his brother stopped himself mid-motion and frowned. "A meet-you-right?"

"Me-te-or-ite. A great piece of rock that is so big that it causes an explosion and earthquakes and changes in climate when it hits the ground."

"Oh." Sasuke pondered this new revelation for a while. The freezer was still streaming out cold air. Then his brother tilted his head and looked up at Itachi in confusion. "But Daisuke-kun said 't was 'n Ice Age."

Itachi was starting to see where this was heading. "That came after the meteorite."

"Oh." Some more hard thinking, then Sasuke grabbed the plush animal by the scruff of its neck and unceremoniously dragged it out of the freezer. He smiled up at Itachi. "Thanks, nii-san!" Then Sasuke skipped away again, obviously on his way to subject Mr. Roary to some new extinction scenario.

Itachi briefly wondered how his brother had managed to stuff the toy into the freezer for his simulated Ice Age. Usually, there wasn't that much free space in there because his mother had a slight penchant for hoarding food. But the reason for that quickly became apparent, too.

"And Sasuke," he called after his brother.

Sasuke's head popped inside the kitchen door again. "Yes, nii-san?"

"Dinosaurs don't eat ice-cream."

A brief look of guilt - maybe Sasuke wasn't that good at interrogation after all - and then a blinding smile. "Bye, nii-san."

His brother bolted, this time abandoning the skips in his step in favor of speed. Itachi could only shake his head before giving the freezer a mournful glare. Now what was _he_ supposed to eat?


	5. For the Mission

**Character:** any

**Prompt:** One team member in screaming pain for some reason, and another being driven to distraction by this.

**Rating:** R

**Warning:** convoluted logic

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**For the Mission**

It was for the mission. He held his face straight even though he wanted to flinch with every yelp of pain. It was for the mission, he kept repeating like a mantra. It was all for the mission.

It was his partner.

No. Not his partner. An enemy spy. An enemy spy he himself had caught. An enemy spy that needed to give up crucial information.

And he had to torture his partner, the enemy spy, because both of them were undercover agents and had their own role to fulfill. His partner to plant fake information. He to extract said information and make it look real.

That was the plan. Their plan. And his partner was screaming because everything was going to plan.

Afterwards, when his partner had faked breaking and spilling, it was going to be his job to fake his partner's death. They already had a corpse waiting that bore a close enough resemblance. With a bit of doctoring, it was going to pass inspection. But until then, he had to make his partner bleed and suffer, and it had to look real because they were being watched.

So he made it real.

He clenched his teeth and drew the knife across his partner's skin. Again. He was a cold-hearted interrogation expert and wasn't distracted by the enemy's screams. Not now, not ever.

It was for the mission, he repeated after every thin slice and every flinch and every keening moan of pain. It was all for the mission.


	6. Three Times Zabuza

**Character:** Zabuza

**Prompt:** Three Times Zabuza Wished for a Different Life

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Angst

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**Three Times Zabuza Wished For a Different Life**

I. As a Child

He liked her. She was pretty. Short-cropped, black hair, eyes so blue they almost glowed of their own accord, strong arms and legs, muscles and reflexes that were as deadly as they were well-honed, a temper to match. Beautiful. Not that he thought of her beyond a simple, childish infatuation. Because both he and she _were_ still children. They were still academy students, after all.

The day he learned of their graduation exam - the teachers never told them, but it wasn't like it was an S-class secret - he briefly wished for a different life. He briefly wished he hadn't grown up in Mist, hadn't decided to become a shinobi, hadn't been in the same class as her. Because he just _knew_ that he was going to get pitted against her, because she was the only one he even remotely considered a friend. Because the single goal of the exam was to ensure that the new genin could and would kill their closest comrades.

And he knew that he was stronger than her.

So he took matters in his own hands. He killed her, and then he killed the rest of his potential fellow genin because they could never be as good as her.

II. As a Teenager

He liked her. She was beautiful. Shoulder-long, black hair, eyes a murky grey, slender arms and legs that hid a deceptive strength. On the surface, she was meek and docile; but once the kunoichi inside her was roused, she was a force to be reconed with. Incredibly skilled in bed. Not that he thought of her beyond physical gratification. Because both he and she had been taught that they weren't supposed to form personal attachments. They were shinobi, after all.

The day he learned of the Mizukage's desire to purge Mist of all blood-line clans - there hadn't been a statement yet, but he knew people who knew people - he briefly wished for a different life. He briefly wished she hadn't been the one to show him the pleasures of the flesh, that she hadn't been born with a kekkai genkai. Because he just _knew_ that she was going to get killed, because she was too choosy in her bed partners. Because she hadn't only slept with the Demon of the Mist, but also committed the crime of refusing the Mizukage.

And he knew he wouldn't be able to stand by and watch.

So he took matters in his own hands. He joined a plot to overthrow the Mizukage, and after he was discovered he fled the village because she had been killed a long time ago.

III. As an Adult.

He liked her. She was magnificent. Waist-length, black hair, eyes a warm and compassionate brown, strong but slender arms and legs, muscles and reflexes on par with some elite hunter-nin. She was incredibly subservient, obeying his every whim, willing to lay down her life for him. Everything a man could dream of. Not that he dreamed of her. Because he had long ago given up dreaming. He was a missing-nin, after all.

The day he had learned that she wasn't a 'she' but rather a 'he' - about five years after he had picked her up as a lost waif on some bridge somewhere in the middle of nowhere - he briefly wished for a different life. He briefly wished he hadn't assumed her gender, hadn't tried to be such a gentleman, hadn't invited her to his bed. Because she was too eager to please and hadn't even realized his error, because he had thought he was straight, damnit. Because all other women he had liked had been killed shortly after.

And he knew he would let her sacrifice herself for him because she was his tool and she wanted to, and she wasn't even a 'she'.

So he waited for the day that she was taken from him. He watched her and bedded her and thought about her predecessors. And when she collapsed with an electricity-charged fist through her chest, he didn't even think of wishing for a different life.

Because he had already known it would end like this.


	7. Zombie Apokalypse

**Characters:** Naruto, Sasuke

**Prompt: **I would love to see Naruto set in a zombie!apocalypse :) Maybe Sasuke cutting down some undead with his chidori? Or the Akatsuki trying to deal with the new zombie hoard? Whatever anon wants! I'd love to see it! :)

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** A bit of foul language and violence

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**Zombie Apocalypse**

"Damnit! Why-" *whap* "-can't-" *whap* "-you-" *whap* "-just stay dead!" Naruto screamed.

Sasuke snorted, dealing with his enemy in a very much more economic fashion. Namely a huge fireball to the face that didn't just incinerate the man right in front of him, but a thirty meter long stretch behind that guy, too. "They're dead already, dobe."

"I _know_ that, bastard!" Naruto raged, generously shredding skulls and other body parts with a rasengan swirling in each hand. "What I want to know is _what the fuck they're doing out of their graves_!"

"Looking for brains," Sasuke deadpanned as he knocked off the heads of yet another row of undead. A chidori-laced fist worked wonders in that regard. His record so far was seven in one fell swoop, but he was determined to make it to at least ten before this disaster ended in one way or another.

As if to confirm the Uchiha's statement, the army of sleepwalking-looking corpses restarted their chant of "Braaaaiiiinnnssss!" in an uncoordinated, sepulchral graveyard-chorus.

"I'm just dreaming this, ain't I? There's no way that the apocalypse is happening like right now."

Sasuke's snort was answer enough. "Newsflash, dobe," he used a backhand swing of Kusanagi to decapitate one of the zombies that had snuck up on him, "that's exactly what's happening."

Naruto spammed a few more clones and tore through the undead like through rice paper. He grunted. "I swear, when I'm Hokage, I'm gonna make cremation the mandatory burial practice! Now _shut up and die already!_"

Sasuke took that last part as Naruto talking to the ghastly chorus of undead. The two of them might have their differences, mainly because of Sasuke trying to kill Naruto several times, but Naruto was too much of a bleeding-heart to wish the same in return. "Idiot. In case you haven't noticed yet, Konoha is gone, the world is ending, and you're still thinking about becoming Hokage?"

"A man got to have ambition," Naruto shouted back.

Sasuke merely rolled his eyes and kept killing. Should the two of them survive, Naruto was going to be the next one to die, for unmitigated stupidity.


	8. Night Terrors

**Characters:** Itachi, Kisame

**Prompt:** Night terror, not a nightmare(they are two very different things). Obviously, screaming, plus for combativeness, struggling, having to be physically subdued, and/or crying.

**Rating:** PG

**Warning:** none

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**Night Terrors**

A rustle of sheets.

Kisame looks over to Itachi's sleeping form, which lies motionlessly on the single futon of the inn. They take turns keeping watch; they are high-profile missing-nin and can't afford to let down their guards at the same time.

In the darkness of the room - barely illuminated by the lantern shining down on the sign in front of the inn - Kisame can hardly make out Itachi's outline. He relies more on his ears and his nose to tell him what is going on, especially since his sight isn't that good in the first place. Well, during the day it isn't. During the night his eyes are on the better end of the night vision spectrum, but he has learned long ago to pay more attention to his other senses.

His nose alerts him that a low stink of terror is seeping into the room. As a predator, Kisame has practically specialized on that one particular scent. It is a bit unusual though to smell-taste it from his partner, a man so stoic that absolutely nothing fazes him when awake. Maybe that is the price to be paid for such equanimity?

Kisame's ears tell him that Itachi must have twitched again, skin rustling against cloth. Itachi's breath comes faster and turns into choked gasps. His limbs tremble and flinch, a stark contrast to Itachi's normally motionless sleep.

This is not a nightmare. For one, Itachi has been asleep for less than an hour. For another, neither has he entered the stage of rapid eye movement, nor has sleep paralysis taken hold. This is something deeper, something more primal that takes place when the sleeper is practically dead to the world.

Being a rightfully paranoid ninja, it is not often that Itachi lets himself relax enough to sink to that stage of sleep.

Kisame isn't very surprised when all of a sudden, Itachi starts flailing as if he was being drowned. Kisame should know what that looks like, being drowned, because he has put many people into a watery grave. Not even all of them during his time as missing-nin - his suiton skills had been legendary even before that.

Itachi though looks as if he was drowning on dry land. The only thing missing is any kind of wetness bubbling in his throat and a cyanotic tinge to his lips. He isn't really drowning or suffocating, but he is fighting as if he were. Due to his flailing, Itachi hits his hand on the tatami, his foot on the chest at the foot end of the futon. The sheets threaten to trap him, making his thrashing more pronounced. Still, Itachi doesn't make a sound beyond panicked hyperventilation.

All of a sudden, he shoots up to a sitting position, his hands twisting between aborted seals and defensive taijutsu and weapons pouches he has taken off before going to sleep. The terror in the air is so thick that Kisame could choke on it, yet he does nothing. Despite having his eyes open and moving in a somewhat coordinated fashion, Itachi isn't awake yet.

This is experience speaking. Kisame has seen his partner suffer through similar episodes before, and he has never reacted to words or touch. Short of inflicting physical pain, Kisame won't be able to wake him up. And those few times he had roused Itachi, his partner was disoriented, slow to find back to reality, and unable to remember what had happened. No, it is much less of a hassle to leave him asleep.

So Kisame does nothing but watch, listen, and smell as his partner fends off apparitions only he can see. Not too successfully, judging by the mindless panic of frightened chakra suffocating the room.

The fear spikes to new heights, making Kisame practically feel the rabbit-like vibrations of Itachi's heart. If there was more light, he probably would be able to see the rictus of terror on a normally mask-like face. As it is, he can hear the scream bubbling deep in Itachi's throat, fighting and pushing to be let out, to make its agony heard in a high-pitched wail as terrified chakra stabs deep into his skin and Samehada _hums_ -

The only sound emerging is a low moan that somehow tells of more pain and desperation than any scream could have. It is the noise of a mortally wounded animal that can't get out of a trap and is waiting for death to claim it.

If he hadn't heard that very same sound so often, Kisame would probably feel concerned.

Itachi though is done for now. Whatever demons he goes through have broken together with the vocalization, allowing the fear to make way for a deep-seated emptiness. The same emptiness his partner shrouds himself in during his waking hours.

Itachi lies back down and curls up on his side, breath and heartbeat slowly normalizing as the sweat on his skin dries. The waves of his tormented chakra ebb away, until the cloying scent of fear turns stale and cold. It is only broken by the salty smell of tears trickling into the pillow.

Kisame returns his gaze to the window. Tonight was a fairly harmless episode. Itachi didn't damage anything; neither did he wake up half the town. It was brief, too, barely five minutes when it could have lasted thirty minutes.

He doesn't think that Itachi ever wakes up during those night terrors. He also doesn't think that Itachi remembers them. Then again, Itachi is a consummate actor. Kisame wouldn't put it past him to feign ignorance. But as long as those episodes don't happen out in the field or endanger their current mission, Kisame won't confront his partner about them. Every ninja is entitled to their own personal demons.

Behind him, Itachi's motionless form heaves a nearly inaudible sigh. Then everything is quiet again. Not even the sheets rustle as the tears dry slowly.


	9. Frustrated Naruto

**Characters:** Naruto, Sasuke

**Prompt:** Embarrassed!Naruto's either frustrated or pleasured scream when Sasuke secretly can't keep his hands to himself in public. Plus if Naruto gets questioned, while Sasuke remains cool and doesn't get caught.

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** Handjob, public groping

* * *

It was bubbling and boiling inside him. Naruto kept clenching his jaw muscles as unobtrusively as possible, trying to ignore what Sasuke was doing down there with his hand.

They were having a reunion of Team 7, ten years after they had formed under the leadership of Kakashi-sensei. They had agreed on the barbecue restaurant near the Western gate, because everyone but Naruto refused to go to a place where there was only ramen (and no, the passing years hadn't quieted his appetite for unhealthy amounts of noodle soup), and Naruto refused to go to a place where there was no ramen at all.

So, the Grilled Dragon it was.

It had taken quite a bit of meticulous planning to get all six of them to have an evening off at the same time. Sakura had been the easiest because she at least was in the village most of the time. On the other hand, her shifts at the hospital were often grueling, and if there was an emergency severe enough, she could even be called in when she was off duty. For tonight though, Tsunade had promised to cover for her unless there was a miniature apocalypse breaking out.

Naruto as the Shichidaime was in the village all the time, but he hadn't imagined just how many boring meetings a kage just _had_ to attend. Monthly council meeting, receiving dignitaries, dinners with ambassadors, jounin meetings, chuunin meetings - pretty much everyone and their dog demanded a meeting with the Hokage. And if they _didn't_ demand one, they sent paperwork instead. Lots and lots and lots of paperwork. Needless to say that being Hokage was boring but hard work.

Sasuke, Sai, Yamato and Kakashi all were in the same boat - they were jounin, Sai in ANBU, Yamato, Kakashi and Sasuke regular ones. All of them were doing missions frequently, and it was a nightmare trying to coordinate four such individual schedules to allow for a common day off. It did help that Yamato had a genin team that wasn't ready yet for C-ranked missions. But the other three…

Well, Naruto was the Hokage, and he was the one who ultimately gave out the missions. So the task had been at least somewhat feasible.

But now that they were actually sitting in the Grilled Dragon, Naruto sure was having second thoughts. Sasuke had squeezed in next to him in the booth, which Naruto hadn't thought much of. However, that had changed quickly once Naruto discovered that Sasuke apparently couldn't keep his hands to himself.

Sasuke and he still had something of a rivalry going on, and somehow that included mutual jerk-offs. It didn't really make sense, because both of them were decidedly heterosexual in their tastes - Hinata featured very prominently in Naruto's dreams, and Sasuke was looking to revive his clan with Inoue Noriko, a chuunin three years younger than them.

But for some reason, it had seemed absolutely logical to include sexual prowess in their games of one-upmanship. Like comparing staying power (which translated into jerking each other off and seeing who came first). Or who was more skilled (which translated to making the other come as often as possible within a certain amount of time).

And apparently, Sasuke thought that now was the time to start another one of their games.

In the beginning, he had just kept tracing a hand along the seam at Naruto's inner thigh, tickling and teasing in a most distracting manner. Competitive as ever, Naruto had taken it as a challenge to not let anyone else catch on to what was going on beneath the table. Naruto had almost choked on his ramen several times, but he had refused to forfeit by either stopping Sasuke or drawing the attention of the others to his… growing problem.

However, as the evening progressed, Sasuke had steadily drawn closer to Naruto's groin, and now he was practically massaging Naruto's member through his pants. As if he was seriously trying to make Naruto come in his pants right then and there.

Naruto had valiantly fought to keep a blush off his face - he had managed to convince the others that his color was due to being too hot and having spicy ramen on top of it. His occasional lapse in attention had been explained away by the dreadfully boring paperwork having rotted his brain.

It was a lot harder though not to show anything in his body language. He couldn't relax because that would open him for involuntary jerks in the direction of Sasuke's hand. And he couldn't tense up, either, because then it would be quite obvious for the others that something was indeed wrong. Sakura had already offered to heal whatever he had done to injure himself this time, and Yamato was giving him concerned glances. Sasuke in his Sasuke-like fashion, too, but the bastard didn't count because that was just a cover to disguise what he was doing beneath the table.

Now, Naruto couldn't even tacitly withdraw from the competition by leaving for the bathroom - his problem simply was too obvious to conceal while standing. Sasuke was far beyond testing his self-control now; it seemed like he was seriously trying to make Naruto blow his load in front of everyone.

And that definitely hadn't been in the script. (Not that they had one, but there was an implicit understanding between the two of them not to let anyone know of their admittedly ridiculous challenges. Their names weren't Kakashi or Gai, after all. At least Naruto thought that there was such an implicit understanding, but considering Sasuke's actions just now it seemed he had been wrong about that.)

It made him angry that Sasuke would try to embarrass him like that. Incredibly angry. And being horny like hell certainly didn't help in keeping a cool head at all.

So it was no wonder that, when Sasuke gave an especially hard squeeze to his package, Naruto's rage suddenly exploded and shoved a vicious elbow into Sasuke's ribs, nearly catapulting him out of their booth. "God damnit, stop it!" he shouted.

Silence.

Everyone (including the other guests and the whole staff) was staring at him as if he had lost his mind. Even Sasuke, who was tenderly rubbing the spot Naruto had just struck and slowly sitting up again. The small flick of Sasuke's eyes towards Naruto's crotch was nearly impossible to catch, and so was the satisfied gleam that briefly crossed their glossy blackness.

Then Sasuke's face was once again composed in a disgruntled frown. "What's the matter with you, dobe? Got some problems?"

It made Naruto realize that he was almost out of his seat, and that if he stood up a tiny bit straighter, his problem would be exposed for everyone to see. He glowered and sank down slowly again, trying to cover his embarrassment with a judicious helping of anger.

"Of course not," he growled.

"Are you alright?" Sakura asked tentatively, a slice of grilled meat suspended half-way towards her mouth..

"Yes, I am," he huffed. "Or rather, I would, if a certain _someone_," he glared at Sasuke, "didn't insist so much on being himself."

Cue more stares, but at least the other guests of the Grilled Dragon were going back to their own conversations.

Sasuke shook his head in disgust, playing everything so cool that Naruto just wanted to hit him again. "Idiot."

"Mmm," Kakashi hummed, irony brimming just under the surface. "I can clearly see how Sasuke being Sasuke might be a problem."

The copy-nin slouched further into his seat, ever-present mask up and hiding everything but a slightly bemused eye.

Next to him, Yamato rolled his eyes. "Naruto, just for once try and not let Sasuke's presence get such a rise out of you. I know it's hard, but you're Hokage now. Try to maintain at least a bit of respectability."

Naruto nearly froze. Had Yamato just said what Naruto thought he had? Or was that just the blood in his groin speaking, having a one-track mind when hearing words like 'rise' and 'hard'?

Yes, that had to be it. Yamato was far too straight-laced to say such innuendo with a completely serious face. If it had been Kakashi on the other hand…

He relaxed a bit. "Yeah, yeah," Naruto waved off, "I'm Hokage. Still doesn't mean that the teme isn't a bastard."

Everyone rolled their eyes collectively, and slowly everything went back to normal Team Seven bickering. Including Sai's comments of Naruto being dickless, and that more than anything helped deflate Naruto's problem.

Crisis avered.

Now Naruto only had to find suitable revenge.


	10. Three Times Jiraiya

**Characters: **Jiraiya/Tsunade

**Prompt:** Three times Jiraiya saw Tsunade without her jutsu

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Character death (Jiraiya), Angst

* * *

**Three times Jiraiya saw Tsunade without her jutsu.**

I. When he was brought into hospital during the Second War and she completely exhausted herself draining the poison from his veins.

He had taken part in a vicious skirmish where Sand had nearly broken through the front lines. All of Konoha's shinobi had been equipped with the counter to every single one of Sand's toxins. However, what none of them had known was that Chiyo used the battle field to test a new generation of neural toxins. The standard antidote Jiraiya used only worsened his condition, and it was a miracle he survived until he could be brought to the hospital. Already exhausted from healing a never-ending stream of wounded shinobi, Tsunade hadn't had a choice but to use every last smidgen of chakra available to her. Even the tiny bit keeping up the genjutsu she had begun erecting around herself after Dan's death.

While she worked around him frantically, he caught glimpses of her through his agony. Her face looked tense and pale, grief lines not vanishing completely anymore when her expression changed. Small wrinkles started showing on her skin, deviating from the peachy smoothness of eternal youth she had created for herself.

She showed first signs of growing old. Jiraiya closed his eyes and decided that the poison was making him hallucinate.

II. When he coincidentally met her on his reconnaissance duty for Hiruzen-sensei, after she had left Konoha.

He had been tracking a lead to a small village on the border to Rice, when he heard a familiar voice. But he hadn't spotted her until he had seen her apprentice, Shizune. The girl was walking with a woman who could have been her mother, grandmother even, if it hadn't been for the ash-blond hair. It had taken Jiraiya several minutes to realize that this middle-aged lady was his princess.

This skin of her hands seemed paper thin, and the clearly visible veins moved on to fingers that had seen decades of extensive chakra molding. Wrinkles and frown-lines crossed her face, years of pain becoming flesh. Although she was walking tall, it was impossible to miss that a heavy weight rested on her shoulders.

She hadn't aged well. Jiraiya left before she couldn't pretend anymore to not have sensed him.

III. When she wished him well the evening before he left to track down the Akatsuki leader.

They both knew that it was very likely that he wouldn't survive his mission, Pein having just shown that he could do what the sannin had never managed during their prime: defeat Hanzou single-handedly. Their night was passion-filled, but also laced with desperation. They weren't getting any younger, and 54 was an age where they couldn't fool themselves anymore that their best years were long gone. Sure, they were still strong, stronger than nearly anyone in the village. But compared to thirty years ago, that was nothing.

For once in his life, he asked to see her true face. And she showed it to him, and he couldn't help but love her more for it. Her hair was graying, her already light color paling until it was only a couple of shades darker than his. Laugh lines crinkled around her eyes that stared at him patient and serious. Despite her age her body was muscular and lean, and she was standing with a silent strength that nobody would expect from her when considering how temperamental she acted under her jutsu.

Becoming Hokage had done her a world of good. Jiraiya couldn't get enough of her looks, thinking her much more beautiful like this than the perfect shell she showed to everybody else.

* * *

After Jiraiya's death, Tsunade played with the thought for a while that she give up wearing the jutsu. To commemorate him, like she had done for Dan. In the end though, she decided against it. When they met on the other side, she wanted him to have a reason to ask again.

The End


	11. Hyourougan Abuse

**Characters:** Sarutobi

**Prompt:** Three Times a Report of Hyourougan Abuse crossed the Hokage's Desk

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** A bit of foul language. Drug abuse.

* * *

**Reports of Hyourougan Abuse**

Sighing, Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at the stack of messages on top of his desk. Thankfully, his secretary had already sorted them by topic, making it easier for him to speed-read through them. He picked up the first pile, the one marked Hyourougan. Soldier Pill.

Soldier pills were a drug to boost a ninja's fighting capabilities, their chakra regeneration, and ability to stay awake. Afterwards though, they caused quite a severe crash. In short, used incorrectly, soldier pills were quite dangerous. He wondered, just how many reports in that vein he was going to get this time...

Sighing once again, Sarutobi started going through the pile.

**From:** Dr. med. Nakata Ayumi, Konoha Hospital

**To:** Hokage-sama, Hokage Tower

**Subject:** Potential hyourougan abuse

**Begin Message**

Hatake Kakashi (RegID 009720) and Shiranui Genma (RegID 010203), have come into my care after Mission 003-27-09-065 because of a massive overdose of Hyourougan.

Again.

This is the third (!) time this month, Hokage-sama. Do something, or they will eventually manage to kill themselves.

Repeated lectures on the negative effects of consuming more than the recommended amount of hyourougan, haven't shown to have any positive impact on the subjects' behaviors. Every time, they justify their actions by citing mission demands - mission demands that they are not allowed to tell me because of confidentality constraints. However, it seems suspicious to me that it should have been necessary to take five soldier pills over the course of a often as Hatake and Shiranui are in here because of ODing, I suspect them to be abusing the drug rather severely.

Recommended course of action: Restrict their access to one hyourougan pill if the mission is three days or less, two hyourougan pills otherwise. Better yet, stop sending them on such dangerous missions where they need to take them at all. You wouldn't believe how much such simple actions would raise their life expectancy.

Knowing both them and you though, that isn't an option. If you can't do anything else, at least send them to a doctor who has the necessary clearance to check if there is a psychological addiction - the physical part we're already taking care of in the hospital here.

A concerned medic,

Dr. med. Nakata Ayumi

**End Message**

Hm. Just about what he had expected when he had gotten the news that the two jounin had completed the mission but had been hospitalized. And sadly, Nataka-san had hit the nail on its head: Sarutobi just couldn't afford not to make use of two such exceptional shinobi. He knew that they tended to use too many soldier pills, but their mission record spoke for itself.

And if he didn't send them out anymore, he'd have to find other shinobi. Someone had to go and do those A- and S-ranked missions, and Sarutobi preferred it to be ninja he could trust and where he knew they had a high chance of succeeding, of coming back alive.

Sighing - he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately - Sarutobi set the message aside and went through several more similar-themed ones.

The next one that caught his attention came from quite an unexpected source, considering that he was still dealing with the hyourougan pile.

**From:** Umino Iruka, Ninja Academy

**To:** Hokage-sama

**Subject:** Request for additional personnel for Wilderness Survival Training

**Message Body:**

The wilderness survival training exercise for the third years is scheduled to begin the day after tomorrow. However, Amano-sensei, the teacher who would have accompanied the class together with me, has managed to OD on soldier pills trying to catch up with his grading. He is in hospital and not expected to make a recovery before the end of the week.

Since I am not keen on joining him there after the excursion for the exact same reason, I would like to request a second chaperone. A chuunin if possible, or a special jounin, please. Someone who is capable of watching thirty pre-genin for three days without getting a nervous breakdown (which means not Ebisu again). And preferably someone who can do all this without having to resort to taking hyourougan - the students don't need to learn any bad habits from their teachers. They'll get them soon enough on their own.

Mass quantities of coffee will be provided by the Academy.

A slightly overworked Academy teacher,

Umino Iruka.

**End Message**

Sarutobi smiled slightly. Ah, yes, the wilderness survival exercise. It was always a highly anticipated event amongst academy classes.

He was a bit concerned though about Iruka's colleague, the one who seemed to take soldier pills like amphetamines. And it was a bit disconcerting to see that Iruka apparently thought it necessary to include that he didn't want anyone using soldier pills.

It seemed that Konoha's ninja had a bit of a problem with using hyourougan responsibly. Maybe he should arrange for a lecture for his shinobi?

Finally, he was down to the last message in the pile. Interestingly enough, his secretary had put a post-it note right across it so that Sarutobi couldn't read the message below before reading what his secretary had written.

_I wasn't quite sure where to file this. From the context, I assumed that the main topic is about the hyourougan. However, see for yourself. And try to keep a straight face._

Curiosity fully awake, Sarutobi tore off the post-it. It was very rare that his secretary didn't know how to lable things, and the warning at the end was even more interesting.

With a raised eyebrow, he scanned the message.

**From:** ?, Konoha citizen

**To:** Hokage-sama

**Subject:** Keep your fucking ninja under control!

**Message Body:**

It is a well-kown fact that ninja have more stamina than civilians, which inevitably leads to more vigorous... private exertions. However, it is downright ridiculous to expect neighbors to put up with such activities lasting fucking three days straight! Whatever you're giving your ninja to make them able to perform like that - stop it! We want to be able to sleep at least some time during the night.

(Or see to it that it becomes available for civilians, too.)

A highly annoyed Konoha citizen

**End Message**

Sarutobi nearly groaned. Well, this was really the last straw. After reading _this_, holding a lecture on the uses and abuses of hyourougan was absolutely inevitable.

During the next Konoha Citizen Council meeting, not a few councilors wondered why the Hokage kept going on about how soldier pills couldn't be safely ingested by civilians.

And why he kept trying not to smile.

The End


	12. Staying Dead

**Character:** Sakura

**Prompt:** Sakura discovering that a patient who should be dead isn't. It's walking around chomping on people and making more. Can be AU, but would love if it wasn't.

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** Zombies and Foul Language

* * *

**Staying Dead**

"God damn it, why can't anyone stay dead _like they're supposed to_?"

Sakura screamed as she dodged yet another lightening fast attack from a corpse that had been declared dead three days ago. A chuunin that hadn't made it back to Konoha in one piece. But she supposed she shouldn't be so surprised at dead people walking amongst the living, since just about nobody else in this insane world stayed dead.

First off, there had been Orochimaru and his Impure World Resurrection. Pulling out the first and the second hokage to fight the third during the chuunin exams. That should have clued her in that being dead and being _dead_ were two completely different things.

Sakura took a page from Kabuto's book and used some chakra scalpels to cut the major tendons in the corpse-chuunin's legs and arms. The dead body collapsed, and while it was still twitching and gurgling 'Braaaains', it wasn't making too much headway in the moving department.

Then there had been Madara, Hidan and Kakuzu. Lunatics that should have died ages ago. Madara and Kakuzu because they had already lived beyond nursing home material; Hidan because… well, because he enjoyed dismembering himself on a regular basis, just to worship his insane God of Evil. The man had survived _being decapitated_, for fuck's sake.

Thankfully, the corpse she had just ham-strung didn't seem to possess any regenerative capabilities. It was still flopping around on the ground, but her attack seemed to have neutralized it for the most part. Now, she only had to take care of who knew how many other zombies.

But Hidan hadn't been the worst Akatsuki member. Oh no. The absolute fucking cake went to Pein or Nagato, or whatever that schizophrenic basket-case with a god-complex had called himself. First, the guy wiped out nine tenths of the Leaf population and turned Konoha plus the rest of its inhabitants into a smoking crater. A crater of nearly two square miles. And _then_, he went ahead and brought back _every single fucking soul he had killed not even half an hour earlier!_

Compared to the scale of Pein's resurrection, Sakura supposed that Konoha's current predicament wasn't very impressive. However, it was the next step on the evolutionary ladder.

Now, they weren't only dealing with undead ninja, like Orochimaru had resurrected. They weren't only dealing with corpses that could survive evisceration and dismemberment, like Hidan. And they weren't only dealing with a danger to all of Konoha, like Pein had been.

No, whatever was responsible for producing those undead was fucking epidemic. Anyone bitten by those nearly indestructible zombies inevitably turned into a zombie later on, after some kind of an incubation period. There was no way that it would make halt at borders or city limits.

And Sakura could feel that her own zombification wasn't too far off.

Three days ago, she had been called to perform an autopsy down in the hospital morgue. She had been just about to crack open the body's rib cage, when she had been attacked from behind. By a jounin who had died in her hands from strange poison symptoms not even 24 hours earlier.

Now, after three days of watching more and more Konoha citizens fall to the zombie plague, Sakura knew that the jounin had been the very first carrier. The one to bring the seed of disease into the heart of Konoha.

From then on, everything had escalated. By the time they had realized that the zombie was contagious, it had already infected several civilians and ninja. By the time they had realized that there was no cure, more people had been turned. By the time they had realized the only way to kill those zombies was complete immolation or annihilation, plenty high-ranking ninja had been bitten. Most of them knew suicide jutsus destructive enough that they didn't turn into zombies themselves. Or they had explosion tags. But Konoha had been hurt badly by the loss of people capable of killing ninja-zombies. Because, on top of it all, the undead retained their old speed and physical skills.

And so the plague had spread.

Sakura didn't know whether there was still any semblance of containment, or whether she was fighting a lost battle. Hell, for the past few hours, she hadn't seen another living soul.

She didn't know where the rest of the Konoha Twelve were. She didn't know where Kakashi or Yamato were. She knew that Gai had sacrificed himself to stop zombie-Tsunade, and that nearly every medic in the hospital had been bitten. The rest of them though…

But that didn't matter. Sakura had been bitten, too, and it was only a question of time until the infection woke from the dormant state she had managed to keep it in so far. Her last conscious action was going to be directing all her chakra into the explosion tag she had glued to her chest. She was going to go out with a bang, and she wasn't going to let any undead disease or snake pervert or self-made god resurrect her.

Until then, she was going to take down as many zombies as she could.

Baring her bloody teeth in an insane parody of a smile, she laughed hoarsely. "Come to me, you motherfuckers! Come to me! Let's see if I can't convince you to _stay dead once and for all_!"


	13. Marital Bliss

**Characters:** Sasu/Saku

**Prompt:** They're all couple-y but fight and scream over weird, dumb things, a sure sign they are meant to be (and friends take bets on when one of them will murder the other...or when they'll just break up)

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** none

* * *

**Marital Bliss**

"You're impossible to talk to. If you're not going to listen, I don't see a reason why I should waste my breath any further." Sasuke folded his arms and turned his back on her, straight and proper like only an Uchiha could be.

Sakura fumed, standing in the doorway to their living room. "_I_ don't listen? Then whose fault is it that the laundry still isn't done, although it's your turn and I've reminded you ten times already?"

He snorted. "Why should _I_ wash _your_ underwear? It's not like I'm wearing it."

"Oh?" Her voice was so sugary sweet that it could have sent a whole battalion of ninja into a hyperglycemic coma. "Then I suppose I'll stop washing _your_ clothes, too, when it's my turn. After all, it's not like I'm wearing them either."

Sasuke's slowly turned his head and raised a haughty eyebrow at her. "Really? I seem to recall you wearing my boxers on occasion. Same with my shirts."

"So what? Don't think I haven't noticed you using my towels," she glowered.

"_Your_ towels?" Black eyes glinting, Sasuke stared at her incredulously. "I thought those were _our_ towels! Share everything, marriage vow, ring a bell?"

"You mean… Ewww, gross!" Sakura's face scrunched up in disgust. "That's why I bought towels in _two different colors_! Red ones for you, green ones for me. Don't tell me you've been using my towels all along! That's so… so… unhygienic!"

Slowly, Sasuke's temper was rising. "So now it's unhygienic for me to use 'your' towels, but not for you to use _my_ underwear? Let me tell you something: your double standards are starting to grate on my nerves."

"And yours on mine!" The vein on Sakura's temple was becoming more prominent, too.

"Since when do I hold you to double standards?"

"I can hardly talk to Kakashi-sensei without you getting jealous, and there you are flirting with everything that has boobs!"

"Correction. _They_ were trying to flirt with _me_."

"_And that's supposed to make things better?_" Sakura screeched.

Sasuke blinked once. Twice. "Yes. It's not like I was flirting back. There is nothing to get jealous over."

"Nothing to get jealous over! You- you- ARGH!"

When she put her fist through the wall in frustration, Sasuke didn't even have the grace to flinch.

x-x-x

Outside the Uchiha apartment, Naruto and Ino exchanged a wary glance at that wall-shaking punch. All of a sudden, everything was silent - suspiciously silent after that loud screaming match, of which the two unwilling listeners had heard every last word.

"You think they've finally killed each other?" Naruto mused, half seriously. His hand was still raised to knock, like it had been for the past twenty minutes - before the two blondes had become involuntary witnesses to their friends' marital dispute.

Ino, for once content with not barging in immediately, gave the door a doubtful glance. "Maybe? Should we check on them?"

Naruto froze at that suggestion. "Uh, I don't think so," he stammered while his skin couldn't decide whether to turn green or red. "Let's come back in an hour."

Surprised, Ino looked at him. "You sure? There's still that betting pool going on, when they're going to murder each other. We could be heroes if we're the one to bring the news of Forehead's demise." Her eyes were taking on an unholy gleam.

Shaking his head energetically, Naruto actually stepped back from the door as if it was going to bite him. "Nuh-uh. Not with me. They're betting on the day, not the exact hour, don't they? There's enough time to come back later. If they've really killed each other, a couple of minutes more or less won't change anything. They're still gonna be dead in an hour. Better yet, two hours. Or three."

"Scaredy-cat," she scoffed.

Blustering a bit, Naruto scowled indignantly. "You haven't walked in on them yet, have you?"

"You mean they're…" Ino trailed off and gave the door a wide-eyed stare.

Naruto nodded, giving the door a similar stare that was filled with a bit more trepidation than Ino's. "If they're not dead, then yeah. Probably. And I really, really don't need to see what they've come up with _this_ time."

"They're… right now?" she squeaked, still not able to wrap her mind around the situation

He shrugged. "Well, they sure didn't marry because their _communication'_s so great. So, what do you say, let's come back in an hour?"

Suddenly, a moan escaped the apartment. A moan that sounded suspiciously like "Sasuke" and "Harder".

Naruto's pallor returned in full force. "Make that two hours," he amended.

Ino agreed in a horrified daze. "Or three."


	14. What if the ending really IS SasuNaru

**Characters:** not really any

**Prompt:** What if the ending really IS Naru/Sasu (i.e. what if Kishimoto decied to make Sasuke and Naruto a couple at the end of the manga)? Would the fandom explode?

**Rating:** C (for absolute crack)

**Warnings:** Crack, crack, and crack. Oh, and more crack.

**Additional Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters or mangaseries or movies or comics mentioned here. Neither do I own Chuck Norris.

* * *

On a very surprising and implausible turn of events, Masashi Kishimoto finished his world-famous manga series "Naruto" on a gay note. In the last chapter, the hero, Naruto, got together with his arch rival and ardent enemy, Sasuke, and they lived together happily ever after.

And then the world exploded.

Not the world of "Naruto", because "Naruto" was finished and done with and happily ever after holding hands with Sasuke (and maybe also happily ever after jumping into bed with Sasuke, but that was where Kishimoto drew a line - it was a children's manga, and children shouldn't have to read about sex. Even if it was gay sex.)

No, it was the real world. First the world of fan-girls, then the world of shounen manga, and then the rest of the world in general.

The world of fan-girls was most easily explained. When the last issue of Shounen Jump came out, a squeal of yaoi-craze surged around the globe, polluting chat rooms, trolling forums, blocking phone lines, and swamping anime conventions with so much gayness that the few men who could be convinced to cosplay, fled to the far hills. Anyone who dared protest or have a contrary opinion was buried beneath tons of flames and hate-mail.

Next came the world of shounen manga. Kishimoto had dared to break the stereotype of Hero and Arch Rival locked in Eternal Battle, and had opened the door for speculation on similar couples in other shounen mangas.

Akira Toriyama, author of Dragon Ball, got off the easiest. His hero Goku and his antihero Vegeta had firmly established relationships with their respective wives, and had even sired two children apiece; nonetheless he got asked several times if he hadn't included any shounen ai hints during earlier chapters. Like the asexual Namekian Piccolo.

Rumiko Takahashi, authoress of Inu Yasha and Ranma 1/2, got off fairly easy, too. Inu Yasha was quite decidedly heterosexual, and the only potential match-up was incestuous, his half brother Sesshoumaru. Even though fan-girls squealed at that pairing, the media was more restrained. And Ranma was a girl half the time, so no matter who (s)he had a relationship with - it was going to be half gay or half lesbian in any case. The media had already gotten over that ages ago.

Pokemon and Digimon franchise, too, continued to be quite tame. Their main characters simply were too young at ten, eleven years of age.

Tite Kubo though, author of Bleach, got swamped. From all sides, he got asked whether his hero Ichigo, who had ardently refused all advances from the series' main female characters, didn't have a secret gay streak. What nobody could agree on though, was _who_ he was gay with. Ishida, his school rival? Renji, his shinigami rival? Grimmjow, his hollow rival? Aizen, the general Big Bad Evil? Any other of the huge, predominantly male character cast?

Eiichiro Oda, author of One Piece, had similar troubles. He, too, had built a huge, predominantly male character cast. Thankfully though, most questions restricted themselves to crew members of the Sunny, pairing Luffy with anything and everything even remotely alive (and some not so alive, like the skeleton Brook).

Any sports or fighting manga, be it Prince of Tennis, Fist of the Northstar, Eyeshield 21, History's Greatest Disciple Kenichi, or Hajime no Ippo, had already lost from the very beginning; same with robot pilots like Gundam Wing or Ronin Warriors. And it was even worse for the authors where there was only one viable pairing. Yuugi-Oh - Yuugi and Atemu and/or Seto, Fullmetal Alchemist - Ed and Roy, and Death Note - L and Light - were all uncontested couples.

The only section of shounen manga that remained remarkably untouched, was the hentai and harem scene. Tenchi Muyo, Mahou Sensei Negima, Rosario to Vampire, to only name a few. But even with those very clear-cut cases, some tried to argue that the main character just _had_ to be gay to survive that many girls throwing themselves at them without falling for their wiles.

In short, the whole shounen world was invaded by serious and lasting doubts as to the heterosexuality of its male heroes.

And then, the rest of the world exploded. Or rather, imploded, when this change made the jump to other media.

Spiderman, Batman, and Superman either got married quickly (Spiderman, Superman) or laid by their young male side-kick (Batman). Other cartoons and comics did the same. Books and movies - Star Wars, Star Trek, Walker Texas-Ranger - followed.

Churches, if they hadn't done so yet, now damned any and all forms of entertainment to the deepest pits of hell. Most parents did the same. Those that didn't got lectured by their children about gay rights. Boys and men started to question their sexuality left and right, and birthrates dropped fatally. Even Chuck Norris, who could kill two stones with one bird, began feeling attraction to other males of his species - most notably Bruce Lee.

That was when Kishimoto saw what he had done, and saw that if things continued like that, humanity would soon be extinct. So he resorted to desperate measures. He took back his final chapter, quickly erased the hands between Sasuke and Naruto, and copy-pasted them to their other sides to hold Sakura and Hinata respectively. As a finishing touch, he erased that momentous kiss from the first chapter, and this finally put "Naruto" back on firmly heterosexual legs.

The only ones who didn't sigh in relief was the gaggle of yaoi fangirls. And Chuck Norris.


	15. First Snow

**Characters:** Sand sibs

**Prompt:** A set of very confused sand sibs and their first encounter with snow.

**Rating:** G

**Warnings:** Bad grammar.

* * *

Gaara stared at the ground as if it had offended him. "It is white."

Temari nodded, equally perplexed. "Yes, it is."

"But it is not sand," Gaara stated in his typical monotone.

Kankuro didn't know if that was supposed to be an 'I don't like this at all.', a 'Why the hell isn't this sand?', or a 'This better be sand the next time I look at it, or someone is going to die!' statement. A couple of years ago, that difference wouldn't have mattered because Gaara would have unleashed murder and mayhem in any case. However, ever since Gaara had become Kazekage, his murderous tendencies had diminished to a scathing glare that could strip paint from the walls, and the mayhem had been reduced to assigning a month's worth of D-ranks.

In Kankuro's opinion, that made Gaara almost scarier than before.

But that didn't help with their current problem. Tentatively Kankuro walk forward and toed the strange substance. As a result some of it slid into his open-toed sandals. He quickly pulled his foot back and would have jumped from the unexpected feeling if his two siblings hadn't been watching. He was a ninja, goddammit.

"It's _cold_," he complained lamely.

His breath was curling in the air in front of him, signaling the low temperatures. The three desert-born and -bred siblings weren't unused to their breath fogging in the air - some desert nights got so cold that it wasn't an unusual sight. However, they hadn't known something like that was possible during brightest daylight.

Kankuro's naked toes curled from their encounter with the strange substance, and that was when Kankuro realized its second property: "And it's wet," he grimaced, his painted face drawing in a grotesque mask as he examined his foot more closely. "Wet and cold. Urgh."

"It is not sand," Gaara repeated.

Looked like his brother was still stuck on that. To be honest, Kankuro had some trouble with that, too. The white substance was there in patches covering the ground, with some lonely grass blades jutting through its surface. Just like the sand of the northern part of Wind, where it slowly turned into the mountains that formed the border to Earth.

But it was wet. Wet and cold.

A sigh interrupted them from their morose contemplations. It was the very same sigh that Temari always sighed when she didn't want to say 'Let a woman handle this as you men are obviously too stupid for it'. Actually, she had never said that, but it was very obvious that it was implied.

Both brothers watched as Temari bent down to gather a handful of the white substance. At least it didn't immediately harm her on skin contact. She sniffed it, held it close to her eyes to observe it. It didn't take long, and the wetness dripped from her hands.

Kankuro watched as she frowned and blew on the substance. To his surprise, it diminished visibly, and the dripping got stronger. Did it react to wind chakra?

In a move so daring that Kankuro never would have thought of it, Temari put some of it on her tongue. Gaara and Kankuro looked at her wide-eyed, watching her like a hawk for any adverse reactions. Who knew what toxins this white substance contained.

Temari had her head cocked slightly to the right, eyes unfocused as she concentrated on the taste. She frowned a bit. "Tastes like water?"

Then recognition lit in her eyes. Temari relaxed and shook the rest of the white substance off her hands, laughing a bit. "It's snow," she said.

"Snow?" Kankuro echoed her while Gaara's penetrating stare was still fixed on her unwaveringly.

"Yes, snow," Temari chuckled and walked forwards. "Frozen rain that collects on the ground. Only possible in cold climates. It doesn't have any negative side effects because it is nothing more than frozen water. Well, if you discount the potential for hypothermia and frost bite. Just treat it like very fine, very loose sand for dune-walking, and we should be alright according to Baki."

In front of their brothers' astonished eyes, Temari stepped onto the white substance and nothing happened. She stood atop the snow, looking back at them. "See? Just like dune-walking."

Gaara and Kankuro exchanged a glance before they tacitly decided to never mention this incident again. They followed her and continued their journey as if nothing had ever happened. Well, except for Gaara's mumbled repeat of "But it is not sand." Kankuro thought that this was the first time that his homicidal younger brother had ever sounded like a petulant child.


	16. Merry Jashinmas

**Character:** Naruto

**Prompt:** What if Christmas celebrated the birth of Jashin instead of Jesus...

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Cannibalism?

**

* * *

Merry Jashinmas**

It was quite unsurprising that little Naruto hated October 2nd and the week running up to it. Everybody was even meaner to him than they already were, he got even more glares, and he had learned that it was wiser not to tempt the fates by leaving his apartment on that day.

However, there was one other day that Naruto hated with equal fervor: December 25th. For weeks in advance, people got that special gleam in their eyes, the one that said that they were looking for presents and ways to celebrate.

Whenever the first ornaments appeared in stores in early September, Naruto got grumpy. Because, although the aesthetics were pure, there was only so much one could do to vary a circle with an inscribed triangle. And varying the amount of glitter didn't count.

Whenever the first geese and turkeys and whatever else were brought into the village for the celebration, Naruto got even grumpier. Because livestock was loud and stank to the high heavens and wasn't made for being kept in a city. And they woke at the insane hour of _dawn_ and made all of Konoha get up together with them.

And the closer it got to The Day, the more pronounced that problem became.

But the real reason Naruto hated December 25th was the smell on the 25th itself. Because it always made him sick to smell all the geese and ducks and turkeys and deer and whatnot sacrificed to Jashin. Konoha was practically bathed in blood that day, and the only spot where things smelled _right_ was near that one house where he'd seen white-masked cloaked figures enter.

So, every year the hid in the alley next to the building and smelled the incredible scent and wished he could go inside to know what exactly it was that smelled so good.

And his stomach growled mournfully.

(It wouldn't be until the year he made genin that he realized that it was _human_ blood that he had smelled. For a while that made him sick to his stomach, but sooner or later he got over it. He was a shinobi, and shinobi had to be able to deal with blood. Even if it made them _hungry_. It was probably a sign that Jashin favored him, so he tried to indulge as often as possible.

(It wouldn't be until the year he made ANBU that he realized that this was how Konoha carried out its death sentences. He watched as a priest came and scratched the prisoners with his scythe, and then dismembered himself to make correlating wounds appear on their bodies. The priest survived. The prisoners didn't. And this time, Naruto didn't even bother to lie to himself: he _wanted_ this. _Needed_ it. The smell, the screams, the blood. The _hunger_. The feeling of being favored by a God, when nobody else liked him.

(It wouldn't be until he tried to carve the circle and the triangle into his own flesh to dedicate himself to Jashin-sama, that he realized he'd had everything wrong. For it was not Jashin gifting him with his advanced healing. It wasn't Jashin gifting him with his thirst for blood. It was all the beast in his stomach, and nobody was ever going to look at him as anything but the Kyuubi's reincarnation.

(He _hated_ Jashinmas.)


	17. What makes a Snowman a Snowman

**Characters:** Gai, Kakashi

**Prompt:** Making a snowman

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Some crude imagery.

**

* * *

What makes a Snowman a Snowman**

Gai was running through the streets of Konoha, for once not on his hands or one leg or backwards or whatever special method of training he had invented this time. Well, he _was_ dragging a half-ton snow plough behind him, but it wasn't for training. At least not completely.

When Konoha had gotten snowed in yesterday for the first time in the past ten years, Gai had volunteered to be the one clearing the streets so that civilians weren't too inconvenienced by thirty centimeters of snow. And that was how he came to be running through each and every one of Konoha's streets with a rusted, thirty-year-old snow plough in tow, clearing a relatively free path down the middle of the road and piling up the snow at least one and a half meters high to the sides.

Gai loved the exercise that got his youthful energies burning; the civilians that he practically locked into their homes with that considerate act of creating meter-high snow walls in front of their doors, not so much. However, Gai was so quick that he was already gone by the time someone thought to shout after him, so the Green Beast never heard any complaints about his … helpful work.

Gai was so quick in fact, that he almost ploughed down a lone pedestrian who was idly strolling on top of the snow as if he weighed nothing, disturbing nary a snowflake in his wake. Well, Gai did stop soon enough to avoid a collision, but he had forgotten that the weight of the snow plough wasn't decelerated that quickly. In the end, it was only the agility and reaction time of the lonesome wanderer that saved him from any sort of injury or an even more gruesome end.

With a graceful flip, the man came to rest on top of the triangular formation that now occupied the exact same spot he had been standing in before. Not one hair was out of place when the wanderer eyed Gai lazily over the top of an equally undisturbed piece of abysmal literature.

"Yo."

Gai couldn't help but cry in the face of such a display of coolness. Big, fat tears dropped into the snow as he lamented the hip-ness of his Eternal Rival, who had long ago turned his attention to reading again.

Finally, Gai wound down to the expected finale: "I challenge you, my Rival! On this unique opportunity of superb weather conditions, I challenge you to a Snow Man Contest! And it would be most uncool if you skipped out like you did on the last two challenges!"

The last two challenges had consisted of who was faster in cleaning all of Konoha's public toilets, and who could lift more women with one arm. Gai had managed a staggering five (women, not toilets), whereas Kakashi had taken one look and left. Alone. Gai had left, too, but with all five of his women.

Only at his apartment, after sobering up a bit during the walk there, had Gai realized that in his enthusiasm, he had accidentally made his challenge in a gay bar, and that the stockings and mini skirts hid a bit of extra growth that wasn't womanly at all. Even though the night had been great (though not quite as great as the one he had challenged his rival to three months ago - apparently quantity couldn't match quality, not even in larger amounts) Gai supposed that this rendered the challenge moot, that neither of them had carried off a victory.

But the toilet challenge, Gai had definitely won, because Kakashi had bailed at the first sign of overflowing wastes.

This time, the skeptically raised eyebrow was worrisome, too, but not as worrisome as it had been with the woman- and the toilet-challenge. Because Kakashi was still talking to him, and he even had a bit of humor in his voice. "A snow man contest? Don't you have enough of snow by now?"

Gai grinned as if there was no tomorrow. "By no means, my Eternal Rival! We have to use this most Superb Weather to show our Splendors of Youth and create the best snow man in all of Konoha! By sun-down!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Kakashi waved off.

Some more tears flowed, caused by Kakashi's coolness and hip attitude, before Gai once again took up the towing bar and charged off. He was so full of youthful energy and vigor that he didn't even realize that his Eternal Rival was still perched on top of the plough and riding along until two streets later, when Kakashi briefly spotted the lures of a neon orange cover before Gai's enthusiasm covered the entire shop window with a wall of snow.

Kakashi supposed it was his duty as well-read literature critic to help the poor book shop owner free his wares, and left Gai to his own devices.

Half an hour later, Gai was done with his work and could finally put all his energy into making the most formidable snow man possible. He chose one of the as of now still untouched training fields, deciding that it provided the best snow for his endeavors.

At first, he only piled up loose snow. But as the whiteness in the vicinity got more scarce, Gai switched to making big rolls that could be carried better. The base of the snow man was easily two meters in diameter already and two meters high, when Gai realized that the snow of this training ground alone would never be enough. After all, he very much doubted that his Eternal Rival would limit himself to one measly field.

So Gai charged off to find more snow, and discovered the joys of the snow walls he had erected not even three hours earlier. They were high and thick and easily compacted into transportable bars that he lugged off to enhance the dimensions of his snow man. Snow giant by now.

Another positive effect was that the civilians that had been locked into their houses up to date, could finally leave through their front doors again, and the general outrage at Gai's heroics diminished a bit.

It was almost five hours later when Gai put the last and final batch of snow in place, jumping almost 25 meters high because the snow giant wasn't tough enough to withstand Gai climbing its outsides carrying a 200-pound-boulder of snow. A last pat, and the snow giant was done - just in time, too.

Gai jumped off its head and admired its humongous silhouette in front of the dying evening sun, and thought that his Eternal Rival just couldn't have created something as magnificent as this.

With peace in his heart and frostbite in his extremities, Gai charged off to find where his Eternal Rival had made his master piece.

It didn't take him long - not even two training grounds away, he spotted the lurid color of Kakashi's permanent reading material, even if it took him two tries to discover the snow white hair and black clothes that accompanied it. His Eternal Rival was showing formidable stealth capabilities in this environment, and Gai swore that he would get himself a black and white winter-spandex-combination to make up for his deficiencies in that regard.

Kakashi looked up at his approach and waved lazily. "Yo."

Once again, Gai couldn't quite help but exclaim over Kakashi's hip-ness, but the thought of trumping his Rival in this most youthful of challenges quickly brought him back on track. "Well, my Rival, where is your magnificent work of art?"

In lieu of answering, Kakashi merely pointed over to the side, where quite a large pile of snow was located. Most of it functioned as a pedestal of maybe two meters height, twenty meters in length, and four meters width. On top of it, in the center of the large base, there was a mediocre snowman of about one and a half meters, malformed with a large head and a thin cylinder-like body, no arms. But, Gai thought, his rival had at least made an effort to give it shoes, even if they were grossly over-sized and nearly merged together.

Gai jumped up onto the pedestal to inspect the snow man a bit closer - even if its size was disappointing, he'd do his best to appreciate his rival's art. He wandered around it, wondered about the strange way Kakashi had shaped the pedestal, and looked at the snow man from all angles.

He was a bit stumped by the strange form. To be honest, it kind of reminded Gai of…

He looked at what he was standing on. The white snow reflected enough of the quickly darkening light that Gai didn't have too much trouble deciding that what he had thought was a pedestal, was in fact a huge, slightly awkwardly shaped human body lying flat on its back. And the 'snowman' at its center wasn't a snowman at all; instead, it was only the 'man' part of 'snowman', in the anatomically correct position and proportion for a beautiful morning tent.

Well, it would have been a tent if there had been clothes.

Gai jumped off the work of art as if he had been scalded, and proceeded to hysterically lecture his rival about the ways such pornographic imagery could corrupt entire generations of Konoha's Future.

Kakashi only shrugged. "You were the one who started the challenge. And, by the way, although yours is bigger, it's absolutely gender-neutral, tending towards female. So I guess I win the bet."

Gai's cries and manly tears only became louder as he was forced to concede. Now they were tied again, 37 even. But the next challenge, he was going to win for sure!


	18. Tsukiyomi

**Characters:** ?

**Prompt:** Alice Human sacrifice (look it up on youtube; a creepy, very free interpretation of Alice in Wonderland)

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** Surreal nonsense

_**

* * *

TSUKIYOMI**_

**72:00:00**

It was a dream. A dream of wondrous figures and black skies and red moons. Torturous and marvelous plants grew into the heavens, and creatures unlike any he had ever seen before crowded the shadows. He was afraid, and yet he was exhilarated. Nothing was strong enough to hurt him here, neither flora nor fauna.

He wandered through the dream world, looking for the exit. But instead of getting out, he was wandering deeper and deeper into the forest, and the creatures grew more and more teeth and tried to bite him more and more often. More and more often, he was forced to kill one of them before they were driven off.

The trees grew denser, their gray skeletons weaving into each other to build impenetrable walls. He hacked his way through, driven by a need he didn't understand. Branches tugged at his hair, grabbed for his clothes. Slowly, he was starting to breathe harder. There! An open maw littered with more teeth than a shark jumped out at him, and only a quick twist at his hips prevented his arm from getting ripped off. His kunai glanced off thick, armor-like scales, making him flee into the trees for a higher vantage point.

Behind him, the creature – monster – crashed into slimy white trunks and scrabbled for a hold. He turned around and thrust himself downwards, surprising the thing by landing on its back and gouging out its eye in one fell swoop. It screamed and screamed and screamed and writhed on the ground, clutching its empty socket. Frightened, he jumped away and then turned around to run further from the disturbingly human sounds.

But the forest was conspiring against him, threading its branches into his clothes whenever he moved too hastily. His knife was a blur, his arm swinging wildly to free himself, but for every step forward, two more branches appeared. And they started bleeding, too.

He was panting harshly, the beast's screams still fresh in his ears. He had left it behind, but others were still following him. Yellow eyes, old and slitted, were observing him from the shadows. Many pairs of them. They were patient, knowing that he'd eventually run out of strength. He growled at them, a deep and frightened sound rumbling from his chest. Instead of heeding the warning though, he could hear a high-pitched chittering rustle in the underbrush, mocking laughter to his ears.

It only made him fight harder.

With every cut, the bone white trees bled more heavily, oozing thick red sap down papery bark. Their leafless crowns moaned softly in the wind; the roots he stumbled over groaned from his weight. His hands were red and sticky, his lungs burning in a futile effort to get away. One more scrape from incautious branches. One more root to trip over, and the trees were still growing more dense.

And the yellow eyes were watching and waiting. Watching and waiting, and he struggled harder, got himself more tangled in the roots. His heart was threatening to jump out his throat, but slowly his movements got more sluggish from fatigue. No, he couldn't give up – but the trees already had limbs wrapped around him when he hadn't paid attention to them for a moment.

A last-ditch effort allowed him to escape yet again, his red-drenched body made slippery by blood and sap. But then white vines snagged him even harder than before, and this time no struggle was enough. He was tied to papery bark and wooden trunks, his air being cut off and desperation sinking into his heart.

Yellow eyes gleamed hungrily.

**71:59:59**

He woke up with a gasp, heart pounding a mile a minute. It had been a dream. Only a dream. A dream of wondrous figures and black skies and red moons.

He relaxed slightly.

But then he looked around, and the seed of fear started swelling in his throat.

Torturous and marvelous plants grew into the heavens, and creatures (un?)like any he had ever seen before crowded the shadows. He was afraid, more cautious than before, and yet he was exhilarated because everything before had been nothing but a dream. Nothing was strong enough to hurt him here, he told himself, neither flora nor fauna. And he was still looking for an exit.

In the end, yellow eyes gleamed once again in satisfaction as he trapped himself further and further into the net of bare white branches.

**71:59:58**

He woke with a gasp, and when he looked around and saw the same forest growing as before, he screamed.

Then he ran.

The yellow eyes still caught him.

**70:14:27**

He woke with a gasp, but didn't look around anymore. The sky was still black, the moon was still red, and the creatures were still there. Instead, he only picked up his kunai and started running.

There was no escape from the yellow eyes.

**63:41:44**

He lost his kunai.

It didn't matter.

**58:38:23**

He lost his mind.

It didn't matter, either.

**54:00:00**

He woke with a gasp and refused to move. He was tired, so incredibly tired. Nothing he had tried had worked. Not running, not fighting, not hiding. Nothing.

So he just lay there and waited for the yellow eyes to come. And when they came he smiled at them, a crazy and mad smile, and invited them to take him.

They didn't. Instead, they prowled around him and purred for him, and for a while he was happy.

Slowly the barren white trees grew flowers, roses so tall and blue that he made himself a dress of their petals. Better than the blood and sap he had worn before. But when he was done, the yellow eyes started losing their interest in him. They still prowled and purred, but they were more busy with each other than with him. For days on end, he sat beneath the trees and none came near him.

There was one way out he hadn't tried yet.

The fang's aim was true – he hadn't lost so much of his abilities that he couldn't cut through such an easy target – and his neck smiled a red smile down onto his blue dress. He fell asleep to the yellow-eyed beasts gathering around him and howling to the moon.

**53:59:59**

He woke with a gasp and touched his throat. It was whole. And the black sky and the red moon shone down on him.

He cried.

This time, there weren't only blue roses but also blue grass and swirly and twirling blue fairies dancing in the air while yellow eyes ignored him.

This time, the fang decorated the center of his chest. And once again, the beasts gathered around him and howled.

**53:59:58**

He woke with a gasp and touched his chest. It was whole. And so was his throat.

As he sang to the beasts and they turned away from him, the world turned blue.

The fang was still the only thing that brought them back.

**45:38:21**

He gradually forgot about everything being only a dream. The black skies and the red moon and the monstrous forests became his world. And when it turned blue, he was happy for a moment.

But it always ended with a yellow fang.

**40:21:19**

He gradually forgot about looking for an exit.

Because not even the yellow fang helped.

**36:00:00**

He woke. He didn't touch his chest or his throat or his stomach because he knew he was whole again.

He got up, because not moving didn't help. He sought out the yellow-eyed beasts, because letting them come to him didn't work. He pretended to be their friend, because them pretending to be his friends didn't last.

And slowly, gradually, they accepted him into their midst. The trees didn't grow blue roses for him to clothe himself with, but he didn't mind. He liked the green leaves better. Through dedicated work, he rose to the position of leader. And they still followed him, still yapped at him eagerly. And he loved them for it.

Once he had command of the pack, he guided them to greater and greater heights. He left the bonewood forest, crossed the great green sea beyond that, conquered the empty wastelands. He fought and commanded, using instincts he had forgotten about, too. Gradually, he amassed an empire and ruled it with an iron fist, and for the first time he felt something like contentment.

Then he grew old, and yellow eyes watched with increasing hunger as his bones rotted away from beneath him.

**35:59:59**

He woke. He got up again, because the path of last time had shown a chance of success. He sought out the beasts again, and the trees turned greener than ever before.

This time, he had even greater lands than before, but once again old age defeated him before he could conquer the world.

**27:11:47**

He had explored the maximal expansion of his empire over and over again. The world held nothing new for him. Instead, he turned his focus inwards, towards organizing his kingdom until not even one hair was out of place.

The green was so bright that it almost swallowed the hunger of yellow eyes when his body failed him.

**20:54:32**

There were still hairs out of place in his kingdom.

He could never get them straight.

**18:00:00**

He woke, empty of nearly everything. He wandered around as if in a dream, having forgotten nearly everything.

He watched as the world turned green when someone commanded the yellow-eyed beasts and conquered the lands beneath the black sky and the red moon.

He watched as the world turned blue when someone sang to the yellow-eyed beasts and created fairy tales out of nothing.

He watched as the world turned red when someone ran from the yellow-eyed beasts and spilled blood and sap on the ground.

He watched and waited.

**17:59:59**

He still watched and waited.

First green, then blue, then red.

Always watching.

Always waiting.

**12:52:21**

He began running for green.

He began running with blue.

He began running after red.

He still watched.

He still waited.

**04:23:55**

He wasn't only watching or waiting.

He was hunting.

**01:46:09**

He laid low and watched and licked his chops.

He waited.

**00:49:37**

He settled into an easy, ground-eating lope. He was still waiting.

**00:23:54**

He could see it. He was watching and howling.

**00:05:19**

It ran. He chased.

**00:00:56**

He closed in.

**00:00:09**

He jumped.

**00:00:08**

He dug his claws into its skin.

**00:00:05**

His jaws closed around its throat.

**00:00:03**

He shook his head to tear out its jugular.

**00:00:02**

He howled and tasted warm, juicy blood between his teeth.

**00:00:01**

He bent down to quench his thirst after the kill. From the mirror surface of the water, a beast with yellow eyes stared back.

**00:00:00**

_**- GAME OVER -**_


	19. Guernica

**Characters**: Kakashi, Rin, Obito

**Prompt:** Guernica (the picture by Pablo Picasso – have a look at it by googling it; it's scary and awesome)

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** Blood, gore, stream of consciousness

* * *

**Guernica**

This is the last time Kakashi doesn't remember a battle in minute detail, down to the very last strand of hair fluttering in the wind while his head swims from chakra depletion:

There is noise and silence and adrenaline, and pictures rush by in grotesque shapes that Kakashi stabs at because he can't aim right – because his eye is hurting, hurting, hurting (oozing across his face because he was too slow to duck) and the screams deafen his ears and the raw burn of one too many jutsus coils inside him.

And Rin is there, tied up, caught in the middle of an enemy camp, and then Obito is there (stupid, stupid Obito, they shouldn't have come back, this way Konoha will not lose one but three weapons) and nearly caught, too, but Kakashi stabs at more eyes because he can't aim right, and Rin is suddenly free, a knife (kunai, shuriken) in her hand, and she stabs, too, while he ducks and doesn't lose another eye and tries to cover his teammates' retreat.

They run, run, run, trample on screaming faces and clawing hands and cut their way through a wash of gray, and Kakashi's head is swimming (and oozing blood, serous fluid, white goo from where his eye had once been) and his ears are yelling and his lungs are burning, and it all culminates in horrendous thunder and tumbling rock and something slamming into him from behind, and he flies and flies and flies until he hits the ground a split-second later and Obito _screams_ –

Thirty minutes later, Kakashi is on his feet again, and his eye isn't oozing because it isn't his eye anymore, and while he hasn't screamed out loud (no drugs no time no chakra to deaden screaming nerves) he is still screaming inside and will be screaming for a long time to come.

This was the last time Kakashi doesn't remember a battle in minute detail, down to the very last strand of hair fluttering in the wind while his head swims from chakra depletion. Obito makes sure of that.


	20. Acting Scared

**Characters:** Sakura, Kakashi

**Prompt:** i89. photobucket. com/ albums/ k211/ Tenten_123/ KakaSaku/ kakashisakura. jpg

**Rating:** T

**Warnings:** Sakura gets to see another side of Kakashi, and she doesn't like it.

* * *

**Acting Scared**

Sakura bit her lips. She had done what her mother had told her never to do. She was in Grass country, and she had taken candy from a stranger, gone with a stranger.

As she was dragged along by a hard grip on her wrist, she thought of how good an actor her sensei was. If she hadn't known that this stranger was Kakashi (the candy had been wrapped in a very specific wrapping paper that they had agreed on before the mission), she wouldn't have believed it.

To be honest, she was a bit scared.

He had removed his headband from its customary place slanted across his left eye. Instead, he had taped a piece of medical gauze over his sharingan and left out the hitae-ate entirely. Another side-effect of the missing cloth was that his hair no longer jutted up and out in a side-way fashion; now it slanted forward to shadow his eyes.

And he had taken off his mask. The ever-present mask that none of Team 7 had gotten to look beneath. Somehow, Kakashi suddenly having a face was the most important part of his not-Kakashi look. That together with his hair. What was beneath, was only secondary. No fish-lips or buck-teeth. Just a normal mouth and nose and chin. If the whole combination hadn't given him a startlingly handsome appearance, she would have been disappointed because of the sheer normal-ness.

But, most of all, his character had changed. Instead of the lazy-eyed, ever-late pervert she had gotten to know him as, his eye was narrowed and his lips a thin line. He was curt, abrupt, entirely uncaring of her as he dragged her behind him with a gleam in his eyes that she hadn't ever seen before.

He was _dangerous_.

Not dangerous like when Sharingan Kakashi finally became serious, like during the fight against Zabuza. Rather, he was dangerous like the men her mother had warned her about, those that gave little girls candy to lure them into back alleys. Those that liked little girls a bit too much.

Not that Sakura was little. Well, not as little as she had been. She was thirteen and a kunoichi, for heaven's sake, and she shouldn't be scared when Kakashi-sensei was playing the very role their mission demanded.

Somehow, she still was.

Shizune had given her clothes that looked terribly similar to her old ones; only instead of enhancing her womanly curves (the very few that might be spotted upon very close examination – Sakura was a firm believer that she had already hit puberty, even if there was nothing to see yet) they were hidden away to pretend she was younger than she really was. A new hairstyle and a bit of make-up, both of them courtesy of Shizune, too, completed the change. Instead of the budding young kunoichi she was, she now looked like a wide-eyed civilian girl two years younger. Fragile.

And she felt like it, too. Kakashi-sensei's strength was unmovable, dragging her along behind him as if her resistance (not that she resisted, it was all part of the plan) meant nothing to him. He was a jounin, and she only a genin, and although she had taken first lessons with Tsunade-sama, she very much doubted that reviving dead fish would help her right now. Especially not with how twig-like her arms looked compared to his muscular forearms and sinewy hands.

Suddenly, he dragged her into a dark alley. She stumbled a bit, and the only reason she didn't fall was because sensei held her arm so tightly. She was going to have bruises afterwards. He had somehow swung her around so that her back was to the alley, catching her other arm that had instinctively risen to keep her balance. To protect herself. She didn't know. He was scaring her, scaring her even more now. He didn't look at her like his student. He didn't even look at her like he knew her. His eyes – eye – were narrowed, and there was a glint in them that she really didn't like.

She automatically backed away from him, and he smirked at her. Not Kakashi-sensei's eye-smile, but an almost malicious grin.

"Don't play coy now," he said as he stepped closer to her and forced her arms away from her body.

She backed away again, trying to tug her wrists out of Kakashi's grip. She was struggling more earnestly now, unable to help herself. It was a mission, she tried to remind herself, and if her sensei had dragged her into an alley, it must mean that the police are close.

It didn't help. Kakashi-sensei frightened her, and she was no longer playing the scared little girl because she really _was_ it.

Her legs bumped against something on the ground, preventing her from stepping back any further. She leaned away because Kakashi was still stepping closer, and he towered above her, and she couldn't help but look up at him in fear -

"He, you! What are you doing there?"

Not letting her go, her sensei turned around to look over his shoulder. She didn't think he could see any more than she could, a strongly built man at the entrance to the alley.

Kakashi-sensei sneered. "Mind your own business."

The man stepped a bit closer, not quite threatening. Sakura could see that he was wearing a police uniform, and she nearly sighed in relief. The man frowned harshly. "It is my business. The lady doesn't look like she is enjoying herself, and she's a bit young to be doing the business you want from her. So why don't you let her go and scram, and I'll forget I have seen you here?"

"I've got a better suggestion," Kakashi-sensei growled. "Why don't _you_ scram and forget you've seen anything? Might be better for your health."

Sakura couldn't help but whimper slightly as Kakashi-sensei's grip tightened even further around her wrists. It really hurt now.

She didn't realize he had done it on purpose until she saw how the police-man's frown grew deeper at her noise, settling into stark resolve. "Last warning, mister. I can't stand bastards like you who think they need to go after children to get their jollies."

Kakashi-sensei snarled and pushed her away, turning completely towards the police man. "Fuck you!"

Wide-eyed, Sakura watched as Kakashi snarled and grunted and swung at the police officer with a lot more rage than skill. Even when fighting, he didn't look like her sensei. Her sensei was efficient, graceful, deadly. This Kakashi was a brutish, untrained, thug and was raining down blows at the officer without thought.

The officer struggled a bit under the sudden onslaught, but he quickly reached for the baton at his hip and brought it to bear very efficiently. Kakashi-sensei didn't heed the weapon in favor of attacking, and it didn't take long until a mistimed right hook on his part sent him right into the way of the baton. Sakura screamed slightly when it cracked hard against his temple, and he crumbled to the ground like a puppet with all strings cut. The officer, too, looked a bit surprised, but he was a professional. He quickly checked Kakashi's pulse before wrenching the arms of her sensei's unconscious form behind his back and snapping hand-cuffs around his wrist.

Only then did he get up and look at her. "Are you alright, miss?"

She could only nod wide-eyed and rub her already bruising wrists.

"He hasn't hurt you?" the officer asked in concern. A concern that Sakura found hysterical for some reason. Here there was her sensei, who wasn't really her sensei for the sake of the mission, unconscious on the ground, and the police man was wondering if _she_ was hurt?

But her sensei wasn't her sensei, so she swallowed the laughter bubbling up in her throat and shook her head and rubbed her wrists harder.

It wasn't hard to play the shell-shocked maiden, and the rest of the evening vanished in a blur. The officer tried to gain her trust so that she would tell him what had happened. So that he could take her home to her parents. Another officer came and took Kakashi's unconscious body away, "to be sent to prison forever" so that he couldn't hurt brave little ladies like her anymore.

Eventually, she let the officer guide her to the Morningstar Inn, where her aunt (Shizune in disguise) was waiting for her and playing the worried and inordinately relieved caretaker. As soon as the officer left though, the masks fell and Shizune asked about how things had gone.

"They've taken him to prison," Sakura said, swallowing heavily. "He's in."

Thankfully, Shizune didn't ask stupid questions like 'Are you alright?'. Instead, she only nodded at Sakura and said, "Good job. Want to talk about it?"

Sakura shook her head. Then nodded. Then shook her head again.

Shizune squeezed her shoulder, a slight smile on her lips. "I understand. This was your first time seeing an infiltration mission of this kind. He's a great actor, isn't he?"

"Yeah," she managed. "A great actor."

Another squeeze to her shoulder. "You did great, too."

Sakura shook her head again and moved away from Shizune, pacing around the room. "I didn't do anything. I was scared. Of _sensei_."

Shizune smiled wanly. "And that's why you did such a good job. Come on, let's go to sleep. Everything will look better tomorrow, and we'll be back in Konoha by tomorrow evening."

"Yeah," she mumbled.

They would be back in Konoha by tomorrow evening, their mission done. Kakashi-sensei would be in prison by tomorrow evening, his mission of sniffing out an underground drug trafficking ring operating from Grass country's shinobi prison only just begun.

It took a long time until she fell asleep.


	21. Juvenile Tactics

**Characters:** Jiraiya, Tsunade

**Prompt:** Yet another picture: i53. tinypic. com/ 2d1oc3a. gif

**Rating:** T

**Warnings: **None.

* * *

**Juvenile Tactics  
**

"Aren't you a bit old to be using such tactics?" she asked with a slight smile.

He looked down at her, braced above her as he was. "I don't know what you are talking about," he returned glibly. "Seems to be working fine so far." Better than most of his past approaches anyway.

Her leg hooked languidly around his thigh, a bit contrary to her otherwise completely unmoved countenance. "But you have to admit that the accidentally-crashing-into-each-other-and-falling-into-a-compromising-position approach is rather... juvenile."

"Mmmh. If you think so." Juvenile – hah! It had taken lots of work to pull this off, and he very much doubted any juvenile could have done it. Neither surprising her into having a crash in the first place, nor making sure in happened in a spot where there were no unwanted observers, nor avoiding all fists and elbows and knees and those spiked traps on her feet that she called high-heels. Oh, and of course land with pinpoint precision between her legs, braced above her but not touching her in any inappropriate fashion.

Which he wanted to rectify very badly, but didn't dare lest his slippery catch decided not to play along anymore.

So he bent his elbows until their faces were only inches apart and their chests nearly touched, and whispered against her lips, "You mind?"

Her eyes darkened a bit; maybe it was also her pupils that dilated. Still nothing but that enigmatic smile on her lips. "What do you think?"

He studied her for a while, her youthful features, the way her long pigtails curled on the floor next to her head, how she made no move to escape him. She was breathing a bit faster than normally, her lips slightly parted as she studied him in return. He knew he looked old enough to be her father – the father of her genjutsued appearance anyway – but he also knew she liked her men manly and confident in their skills. Not the overconfidence of youth, but the confidence that came with age and experience.

"Doesn't look like you mind," he said, more to encourage himself than as a true answer for her. Her unexpected docility and willingness to play along had startled him, much more than anger or scorn or a fist to his face would have. She had never been this passive with him before.

Then the leg she had hooked around his thigh tightened, and the tiny shove closed the rest of the distance between their lips.

No, she probably didn't mind.


	22. Anko

**Character:** Anko

**Prompt:** An original poem. No, I'm not going to copy-paste it here – this is the link: naruto-meme. livejournal. com/ 11417. html? thread = 1690265#t1690265

**Rating:** T

**Warning:** Creepiness. Stream of consciousness.

* * *

**Anko**

She smiles, often and hard, with her teeth bared so far that her gums are visible. She walks, runs, jumps through Konoha and smiles (grins, grimaces) at the people who turn away from her. _More blood,_ she cackles. They turn away from her a bit faster. She grins harder as her eyes remain cold.

_Why...? (was I chosen did you use me mark me leave me)_

_Because you are a promising young kunoichi, Anko. The best of all genin._

_- (Because love is only a tool to be used)_

_- (Because honey doesn't only catch flies)_

_- (Because you are young and stupid enough to be formed and molded however I desire)_

She sees how they look at her (judge her condemn her) and see the black mark on her neck. She grins her best smile and bares a bit more skin so that they can see exactly what they have allowed her to become. _More blood,_ she cackles. Traitor, they whisper behind her back and turn away from her. Her grin is as frozen as her eyes are.

_Why...? (was I rejected do you avoid me fear me hate me)_

_Because you were a promising young kunoichi, Anko. The best of all genin._

_- (Because you aren't anymore. Young, promising, untouched kunoichi.)_

_- (Because you once were like us and we don't like to see what we can may will become)_

_- (Because you were young and stupid enough to be formed and molded however he desired)_

Her best smile is strong. Not in expression, but in how long it can stay pasted on her face. But sometimes it crumbles, and then she rages curses shouts wants to strike back at everyone. _More, more, more blood,_ she growls, _until you are as red sad dead as I!_

They turn away. (Disgusting, traitor, lunatic, whore)

She still has enough control over herself that she remains frozen and doesn't go after them.


	23. The Rat

**Character:** Kakashi

**Prompt:** The poem "The Carterpillar" by Anne Laetitia Barbauldd

**Rating:** T

**Warning:** Strange logic. ANBUness.

* * *

**The Rat  
**

Despite the shortness of man-power that chokes ANBU after the Kyuubi, Commander Cat-sama takes time out of his undoubtedly busy schedule to talk to the new recruits. After years of service in the blackest of black-ops, Inu will remember him fondly, as a human amongst faceless masks. Today though, tattoo fresh and red and still so raw inside that he is completely frozen, Inu gets the exact opposite impression: an emotionless tool, distinguished from his subordinates only by the color of his cloak.

And Cat-sama's words are bland, inhuman, as he shows them his rat. A pet rat, white and curious. He invites them, faceless masked figures, to hold it. To feel its soft fur, its little claws as they prickle along their gloved hands. To watch its nose twitch with life, its intelligent black eyes dart everywhere. To touch its whiskers, quivering with each new scent. To pet its head and see the long tail curl from pleasure. To get to know it in every single detail.

They watch and feel and touch, and wonder why. But none dares to ask as Cat-sama continues talking about the fascination of rats in general, and the little personality quirks of this one in particular. Minazuki, a five-year-old male. How Minazuki loves his little corn pellets, but always prefers sweet adzuki beans. How Minazuki tends to chase after his own tail like a dog. How rats have noses as fine as any dog, and are just as clever. How Minazuki can do little tricks like walking on his hind legs and begging for food.

"Well," asks Cat-sama. "Do you still think that rats are dirty little pests that need to be exterminated because they only carry disease?"

"No, Sir," the recruits mumble. Inu, too, although he only goes along because Cat-sama is a superior, even if he seems a bit unhinged. Inu is quite sure that several of the other recruits think the same, judging by the uneasy atmosphere and the rat – Minazuki – squeaking contently as it explores Falcon's chest armor.

Cat-sama nods slowly. "Excellent. Now kill Minazuki. He is a dirty little pest who needs to be exterminated because he only carries disease."

Silence. None of the recruits move. "Sir?" Falcon finally asks, confused, and unconsciously reaching out to support Minazuki's behind lest he fall in his attempt at climbing the armor plates.

Cat-sama wordlessly steps up to him and plucks the lively rodent from a frozen hand. They all watch as he returns to the front, still not a word said. When he finally turns around to them again, Minazuki looks at them curiously from inside Cat-sama's collar. Minazuki's whiskers twitch before he burrows deeper into Cat-sama's clothes.

"Remember him," Cat-sama finally says. "When the day comes that you can kill my Minazuki without hesitation, you know it is time for you to leave."

The recruits are still frozen, still confused. "Sir?" Falcon speaks for all of them yet again.

Cat-sama doesn't react. "Dismissed," he only says and walks out of the room. The recruits eventually follow his example and leave. None of them wants to admit that they have no idea what their commander's surreal performance meant.

It isn't until Inu's first assassination that he understands. He clings to the ceiling, a formless shadow amongst shadows, and observes the child sleeping right beneath him. Aiko, a little girl with huge eyes and curly black hair, who loves rice balls and playing with her dolls, and who asks curious and intelligent questions of her tutor but doesn't like her nanny. He has observed her for nearly three days to find an optimal chance to strike. Quietly, he threads his kunai into the back of her neck. Equally quietly, she stops breathing.

He takes strange solace in the fact that Minazuki still lives.


	24. Miracle

**Character:** Uchiha Mikoto, Itachi

**Prompt:** Uchiha Pieta. Link to picture (because it was an art meme): .com/ albums/ qq63/ Omega19x /art /uchiha-pieta-baroque-version4small. Jpg

(And, since I had to embarrass myself and ask: No, Pieta is not the name of an original Uchiha character, but an expression for depictions of Mary holding a dead Jesus in her lap and weeping.)

**Rating:** K+ (PG)

**Warnings:**None. Well, unless you are offended by my mentioning of religious themes.

* * *

**Miracle**

When the white-masked figure teetered up to her, weaving perilously with every step, she didn't cry. Didn't dare cry. Even if it was her son and he was bleeding horribly, and she was deathly afraid that he would stop bleeding because he had nothing left to give anymore. He lifted a trembling hand to take off his mask, revealing a face so pale that the red flecks of blood seemed black in contrast. His mouth went through the motions of "I'm back, Mother," but no breath escaped his lips. She could read him well enough though to know that this was what he had said nonetheless.

She was there to catch him when he collapsed. She gathered him in her arms and carried him inside like the babe he hadn't been for ten years. He was ANBU, yes, but he was still her son. She held him tight and bedded his head in her lap and hoped and prayed that she wasn't too late.

Once upon a time, she had been ninja, too. Once upon a time, she had known that wounds like these were fatal. Once upon a time, she would have left him to die.

Nowadays, she was a mother of two sons. And mothers were capable of performing miracles for their children.

So she poured chakra into him, healing chakra so bright that her whole hand was wreathed in green. Warm, life-bringing green. She poured and poured, and Itachi didn't stop breathing. Dimly she was aware of little Sasuke's presence, but she couldn't spare any attention for her other boy. She needed to perform a miracle, first.

And slowly but steadily, the miracle took shape. While she felt emptier and emptier, Itachi's lungs and muscles and skin knitted together slowly, and he didn't stop breathing. Eventually, he stopped bleeding, but that wasn't because he had no blood left, but because all wounds had closed. Eventually, the miracle grew and grew until she still had two sons, one asleep, one clinging to his brother.

In three days' time, the miracle would be complete when Itachi got up again as if nothing had happened and went back to his job. Mikoto would continue pleading to Fugaku that a father just couldn't keep sacrificing his son like that, even if it was for the good of all Uchiha. But Fugaku was a hard man, and Mikoto dreaded the day that the miracle would not take shape anymore.


	25. Quiet Comfort

**Character:** Kakashi, Naruto

**Prompt:** sensei. sakura. ne. jp/ n/ kn/ 101006. gif

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** Grief. If you continue beneath the 'NC-17 Continuation' warning, a hand-job

* * *

**Quiet Comfort**

"She's dead, Kakashi-sensei. Baa-chan's dead."

Kakashi froze in surprise at the unexpected voice – he had thought himself alone in his apartment. Then he registered the words and briefly closed his eyes. Ever since Pein's attack seven years ago, Godaime-sama hadn't been in her usual health. Sure, she had tried to cover everything with her Eternal Youth jutsu, but years of alcohol abuse plus her regeneration technique plus her severe injuries had taken their toll on her body.

For the past two months, she had been in hospital, getting weaker and sicker by the day. In the beginning, they had thought she had just caught some bug, but as time wore on her body simply ceased to work. First her inability to keep up her genjutsu, then small ailments that just refused to heal, and since last Monday, multiple internal organ failure.

To be honest, it was a miracle that every time Shizune and Sakura had been able to bring her back again so far. But it had been only a matter of time until they failed.

"How long?" he asked quietly. He had been asleep and hadn't heard Naruto come in. Why hadn't Naruto woken him?

Sitting brokenly on Kakashi's kitchen counter, Naruto shrugged. "Two hours? Three? She hasn't been awake for the past two days."

"You were with her?"

"Yeah."

Naruto had hardly left Tsunade's bedside once it became clear that she was seriously ill. Maybe to make up for the fact that he had been nowhere near when Jiraiya had died.

And now, it was over. Konoha would need a new Hokage. Tsunade had held on long enough to give Naruto time to grow into his early twenties, time to become a potential Hokage. Now, six years after the Fourth Shinobi War, there was no better candidate.

But he would bet that Naruto's life-long dream was the very last thing on his mind.

"Want to talk about it?" he mumbled and stepped close enough that they almost touched. Even after all these years, he wasn't one to touch or hug in comfort, but he could at least be there.

Naruto slumped forward, his chin resting against Kakashi's shoulder. There was no moisture in his eyes. He only shook his head, his blonde spikes rustling against Kakashi's flak-jacket.

Kakashi didn't know how long they stood like this, he staring blindly at the tiles of his kitchen wall, Naruto shaking slightly and staring blindly over Kakashi's shoulder.

"You should go to sleep," Kakashi finally said. Naruto probably hadn't left Tsunade's bedside for the past few days.

Once again, the rustle of hair rubbing over his flak-jacket as Naruto shook his head. "Can't."

"You can."

Naruto's shaking grew more prominent, but his eyes remained dry. He had never dealt well with people's deaths, let alone his precious people's. "Don't want to."

"Ah." There was nothing to say to that. So Kakashi kept standing there with Naruto's head slumped on his shoulder, and both of them kept staring ahead blindly and trying not to crumble beneath their grief.

– _NC-17 continuation_

It took a long time for Naruto to stop shuddering. Finally, there was only their calm breaths to fill the room.

Just when Kakashi was about to think of a way of how to get Naruto to bed without waking him, he was startled by a hand against his hip. Apparently, Naruto hadn't fallen asleep after all.

At first, the hand didn't do anything. But gradually, when Kakashi didn't protest, the thumb began to massage slow circles around Kakashi's left hip bone, where it was closest beneath his skin.

He sighed. "Naruto -"

The hand stopped, but didn't move away. Neither did Naruto. "Please, sensei."

"Please what?"

"Please let me forget for a moment."

It was only Naruto's uncharacteristically passive voice that didn't make Kakashi draw away immediately. "You know this doesn't help with anything. Afterwards, the world's as drab as before."

"I know." The thumb started circling again. "I don't care."

Kakashi sighed again. This wasn't a good idea. He wasn't into that whole grief-sex thing. Especially not with one of his students. Former student. "Will you go to sleep afterwards?"

"I will."

As if moving on its own, Kakashi's hand settled on Naruto's left hip in a mirror position of Naruto's on Kakashi's hip. "I'll hold you to that."

"Mhm."

Naruto's hand was the only thing that moved, slowly wandering inwards along the crease that separated thigh from torso. He still had his head rested on Kakashi's shoulder, and Kakashi was still staring at the same spot of his tiled kitchen wall. Kakashi's hand though mirrored Naruto's moves meticulously.

There was no heat or fire in their touch, only a need for human contact as Naruto's finger traced out the size of Kakashi's member through his pants. Kakashi returned the favor. Neither of them were hard, but slowly their breaths were picking up. Naruto softly ran the knuckles of his first two fingers down Kakashi's length, and when Kakashi did the same to Naruto, he earned a quiet gasp.

It was strange doing all this without looking even once. It was strange trying to memorize things from touch alone. Somehow it felt right.

Both of them responded slowly to the stimulation, Naruto a bit quicker than Kakashi. Quiet gasps echoed against his shoulder as Naruto became bolder in his exploration and Kakashi kept mirroring him. There was still no real urge behind the motions, but a solemn insistence.

Eventually, Naruto dipped his hand into Kakashi's waistband, and Kakashi echoed him. The contact of skin on half-hard skin sent a shiver through both of them. They kept up their slow exploration and their quiet gasps. They didn't move otherwise, to look down or at each other or to do anything else. It was strange, anonymous, and yet curiously intimate to feel everything without seeing anything.

The blond remained quiet, even as the echo of his actions made Kakashi pull his member out and set up a firm rhythm. Kakashi was unused to seeing Naruto so unlike his usual boisterous self. Tsunade's death must have hit him really hard, even though everybody had already known it couldn't be long anymore.

They were stroking each other, gaining speed as they gained familiarity. Naruto's head on his shoulder grew heavier as the blond instinctively used that leverage to curl up into Kakashi's hand. Kakashi, too was thrusting forward slightly, his breath hitching every time Naruto's thumb came closer to swiping across the tip.

The shudders returned, but this time they were more from the heat building between them. They were panting and rocking into each other, and it felt good. Good in the way that could continue on forever, without any urgency to end it. Kakashi didn't remember when he had closed his eye, shivering at the feeling of Naruto's hair tickling the side of his neck and his ear. Naruto shivered, too.

They didn't know how long it took, but at one time it was over. Naruto's breath had stilled and frozen completely, surprising Kakashi a bit with his sudden release. Kakashi wasn't been too far behind, painting his flak-jacket and kitchen drawers with his seed.

Afterwards, Naruto was still shivering slightly as he tucked Kakashi back into his pants. Still with one hand, still without looking, still with his flushed cheek resting on Kakashi's shoulder. Kakashi did the same. Neither of them moved.

"You said you'd go to sleep," Kakashi mumbled eventually.

"Mhm."

"Then come on."

Kakashi dragged him from the kitchen counter and guided him to his own bed. It wouldn't do any good to make Naruto go home right now, and Kakashi had just gotten up not too long ago. He didn't need his bed right now.

Naruto didn't struggle when Kakashi undressed him like a child and cleaned the mess they had made, too fatigued to put up any resistance. Finally, he was settled beneath the shuriken-print comforter, only wearing his boxers as Kakashi had removed his soiled clothes.

"Sleep," Kakashi commanded.

Naruto slept.


	26. Balance

**Character:** Kakashi, Yamato, Gai

**Prompt:** GaiKakaYama; balance

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** Mentions the Sexy

* * *

Three's a crowd. Three people – even a child knows that fitting three people on a see-saw simply does. Not. Work.

Kakashi, Gai and Yamato somehow make it work nonetheless.

It is all a matter of balance. While Kakashi and Yamato brood, Gai's eternal Flames of Youth burn all the brighter. While Yamato and Gai get caught up in the rules, Kakashi breaks so many of them that it's getting ridiculous. While Kakashi and Gai are turning_ old_, Yamato is there to remind them that they are still worth the respect of the younger generation.

It is complicated. A judicious amount of juggling is necessary so that nobody feels left out. Thankfully, neither Gai nor Kakashi are people to get jealous, and Yamato doesn't let himself be the odd man out. And when one of them holds him down, while the other does wicked, wicked things to his body, such thoughts are the furthest from his mind.

But beneath all the complications, it is not love.

None of them knows the word beyond an encyclopedic definition. They all were raised under less than ideal conditions – one in a laboratory, one in an orphanage, and one of them in an empty house that would eventually be filled with the corpse of his suicidally depressed father. There simply wasn't anyone to show them, and so they don't, can't love.

It is not even lust. Not when steel-hard fingers massage as much to arouse as to soothe away the pain of countless nightmares and missions. Not when a single red eye spins as much to take in every drop of sweat and every moan, as to make sure they are still whole and unharmed. Not when wood is reshaped as much to create interesting toys as to provide every-day items like chairs and bowls.

Not when one of them stumbles into Konoha, blood-soaked, and there is someone to stitch his wounds and rub his helpless adrenaline, and then make sure he can sleep the sleep of the dead until the next morning.

It is – they don't know what it is. And they don't think too much on it. Not when only one of them can cook, and only one of them can sew, and only one of them can convince Kakashi's plants to survive one more week.

They are comfortable with the way things are. And even though it is not very comfortable to have his knees forced up to his shoulders and a heavy, weight-adorned body plow into him while yet another hand holds his member as a wooden tendril slowly creeps down his slit – well, none of them would give anything to change this.

It is balance, because they all know that the next time it will be someone else.


	27. Root Snippet

**Character:** OC

**Prompt: **something focused on OC members of Root or Danzo scouting for new talent.

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings: **Insanity; child soldiery; depressing as hell

* * *

**Root snippet**

When the door opened, Beta Five looked up from where he was sharpening his kunai.

(His water clone had been crouched on the wall right above the door frame ever since he had felt the first wisps of chakra coming down the hallway, ready to kill should the intruder prove hostile.)

On seeing Kappa Two being trailed by a small brown-haired boy, Beta Five nodded briskly. Beta Six, his former room mate, had been killed on his last mission, and now the spot of Beta Six was open once again. It seemed though that the new Beta Six was a new arrival, judging by the wide eyes and the tear-stained face.

(Beta Five had cried, too, the Iota One two generations before the current one had told him. Beta Five couldn't remember, but he was deeply ashamed. He was Root, and Root didn't show any emotion. Beta Six would learn that quickly enough.)

Kappa Two nodded at them briefly, then left the room again. Beta Five's water clone soundlessly dropped down from its position to close the door and dispelled itself into the sink. That startled Beta Six into whipping around.

Beta Five only watched, keeping up the steady motion of whetstone against steel. Six definitely had to be a raw recruit – no training whatsoever visible in his motions, the musculature on his body. But Five was too well-trained to sneer. After all, he had been a raw-faced recruit, too, once upon a time. "Left bed is yours. Clothes in the left drawer. Old Six was quite a bit larger than you, but you should be able to make do with his things until tomorrow."

New Six nodded slowly, trembling a bit. His eyes were watery, his nose clogged with snot.

"Who," Six's lips struggled to form, but no sound came out.

(Probably the seal, burned onto the tongue far back inside the throat. Everyone got it as soon as they entered Root. Nobody ever remembered getting it though – Danzou-sama made sure to erase that memory, a safety precaution against the seal being deconstructed. Six was probably wondering why his tongue hurt, and why he had screamed himself hoarse.)

It was a good thing that lip reading was one of the most basic skills of any Root agent. Five had no trouble answering Six's question. "I am Beta Five, or Five in this room. As long as you stay here, you are Beta Six and will respond to that. Training tomorrow will begin at 05:00."

There was no reason to tell Six anything else. New recruits had to make their own mistakes. If they were clever enough, they would live. If not – well, Five was accustomed to getting new Sixes.

Eventually, after Five didn't react anymore to his voiceless attempts at communication, Six retreated to the bed. It took a long time for his harsh breaths to smooth into sleep.

Eventually, Five laid his kunai down and went to bed, too.

(Two months later, Six got a new Five. By that time, Six had long ago forgotten that it was possible to cry. And somewhere in the no-man's-land between Grass and Stone, an unidentifiable corpse of an eight-year-old boy rotted away.)


	28. Exercise in Control II

**Character:** Kankuro, Temari

**Prompt**: Kankuro/Sasori, puppet sex. Kankurou's been having bad luck with the ladies lately, and his new puppet is awfully cute. A puppet doesn't actually count as another guy, right?

**Rating:** PG

**Warning**: The sexy part is on AFF-net. This is the PG continuation.

* * *

**An Exercise in Control II**

"You know, that's creepy."

Kankuro briefly looked up to see his sister standing in the doorway, fingering her battle-fan impatiently. "What is creepy?"

"That!"

He followed her gaze towards where he was currently making Sasori paint its fingernails. It was a difficult exercise, testing both the puppet's dexterity and his control to its limits. The next step up was going to be writing; for now, handling the paint brush at all was almost more than he could deal with.

And, of course, during his distraction, the puppet had stopped in mid-motion, and a pearly drop of nail polish was starting to gather at the tip of its brush. With a quiet swear (because nail polish was damn hard to get out of wood, let alone carpet or the faux-skin covering the puppet's hands), Kankuro made Sasori pat the brush against a rag to prevent any spill.

Only then did he remember that his sister was still standing in the doorway. "There's still work to do before it's perfect. Any reason you're here?"

"You owe me a spar."

Meaning: she had a new technique, or at least a new variation on one of her techniques to try out. And she was looking for a poor, innocent victim to try her technique out against.

What a coincidence. He had made a couple of new installations along Sasori's frame that he was just burning to test out. Instead of cackling like a hyena though, Kankurou scowled. Wouldn't do to appear too eager. Might tip her off that he had a couple of surprises she didn't know about yet.

"Now?"

"Yes, NOW!"

Her irritation was entirely unfaked, contrary to his. "If you insist," he grumbled.

He made Sasori help him put away the coloring equipment, the puppet's motions quick and controlled. It was a bit of a problem of how hard he should make the puppet grip breakable things like the make-up jars, because he didn't get any sensory feed-back from the wooden fingers. With Karasu and co, he had never run across that problem because his battle-puppets only had to hold kunai, shuriken, wire – generally: sturdy weapons. However, he had learned to adapt, and it was only on very rare instances that his grip was too light or too strong to hold an item.

Temari was tapping her feet impatiently, and Kankuro smirked inwardly.

"You can go on ahead," he said absently, "I need to prepare Sasori for the spar."

The perfect statement to rile her up.

She bristled, her hand tightening around the main body of her battle fan. "And you expect to be able to tell an enemy nin that, sorry, you first have to prepare your puppets for battle?"

He gave his sister a long look. While he had expected Temari to get angry at his stalling, he hadn't expected her to resort to this. They hadn't had _that_ kind of argument for nearly four years. She must be very impatient today. "Unless you prefer me to hit you with mustard gas and my personal atropine derivate, then yes, you will give me time."

Scowling, she stalked out of Kankuro's workplace, slamming the door behind her.

He raised an eyebrow (and reflexively made Sasori raise his, too). Maybe his assumption that she had a new technique to try out, had been a bit presumptuous. She certainly sounded rather like she was trying to work off some frustration. Had her current bed-warmer, Yuugo, Yuuki, Yuu-something, not been up to scratch this morning? Maybe he should offer Sasori's help, simply to see whether the puppet was capable of satisfying a woman. It _did_ have the anatomically correct equipment, after all.

Then again, he wasn't very keen on having to repair Sasori so soon again. Temari was bound to take offense to such a suggestion.

With a shrug, he disrobed the puppet and made to exchange the poisonous components of its weapons department.

Well, at least most of them. He wasn't going to dislodge Sasori's teeth to get to the senbon behind them, because for one, it was a lot of work, and for another, he never completely disarmed his puppets in case an emergency came up. It had absolutely nothing to do with the poison of the senbon having soaked into the compartment they were stored in, and he'd have to completely dismantle Sasori's head to get to the spot to clean out all deadly residue so that he might carry some less toxic versions.

The gas grenades he left alone, too, because it was a bit idiotic to try and subdue a wind-mistress with poisonous mist. The best he would be able to hope for was that she didn't blow the resulting gas cloud into his face. And while he did have his immunities, getting a face full of tear gas wasn't very comfortable.

With a quick pat to Sasori's shoulder, he made his chakra threads close the compartments and had the puppet redress itself. The motion wasn't quite natural yet, but only a skilled observer would see the slightly awkward way the puppet struggled to put both arms into the long coat at the same time. Then he reset the security seals on his workroom and jumped to the roof-tops, Sasori in tow.

It certainly wasn't hard to find his sister – she was at the training ground where they had spent most of their time when they had been still genin under Baki's guidance. As soon as she saw Sasori, he was greeted with a forceful swing of her fan in his direction. Kankuro smirked. He had already separated from Sasori, hiding himself beneath several concealment jutsu that allowed him to view the entire battlefield without endangering himself. If he played his cards right, he might be able to convince her that he had henged into his puppet, and that Sasori was laying in wait for her.

He put a smirk on Sasori's face (and didn't think of how he had put the exact same smirk on the puppet's face when he'd had his dick down its throat).

There was sand, certainly. Much sand to be blown about by his sister's winds. She went so far as to produce a miniature sand storm, with visibility suddenly becoming quite bad. Did she think that it affected Sasori? A puppet didn't have any flesh to be abraded by the tiny grains, and Kankuro had several other tricks up his sleeve that made low visibility not too much of a problem.

Nonetheless, he barely managed to twist his puppet out of the way of the oncoming gales. The furrows they left in the ground spoke of them being laced with plenty of energy and, more importantly, wind blades. He had made that mistake only once, trying to block a wind blade with Karasu. Karasu had lost an arm that day.

But not Sasori. Kankuro had twisted him out of the way quickly enough, and had already made the puppet bury itself underground. And now, Temari had to stop blowing up so much sand because, as much cover it gave her, it reduced her visibility just as much.

While most of the dust was settling, Kankuro was already working on the next part: deception. He was going to make Sasori cast a jutsu, firming Temari's assumption that Sasori was Kankuro in disguise. Because it was impossible for puppets to cast jutsu.

He bit his lips. Slowly, he forced more chakra down the invisible threads connecting him to Sasori. Shaped chakra.

Sweat was gathering on his brow, because it took nearly inhuman concentration to keep the chakra in its shape, hold the connection to Sasori, and send it to the puppet at the same time. If he succeeded in his task, Sasori was going to do a bunshin – hopefully enough to distract Temari for a short while. It had taken Kankuro a long time to discover this masterpiece of ingenuity: the ability to have Sasori cast ninjutsu.

With all his other puppets, Kankuro had to cast techniques on them, like the henge he often used to make Karasu take his place.

With Sasori, he could cast jutsu _through _it.

A careful twist of his fingers, and Sasori's hands twisted into the ram position. Throughout the entire puppet's interior, a thin web of chakra-conductive wire imitated a human's chakra system. Starting with the center in the lower abdomen, right next to a couple of gas grenades, then up and out through the Gates towards the extremities, until hair-thin tenketsu allowed the chakra to spill outward.

His control was wavering, and he nearly lost his hold on the molded chakra. A desperate push though convinced it to spill into Sasori's artificial channels, and from there it wasn't too hard a task to push it out towards the surface.

Kankuro smirked as two Sasori rose from the sand, one dashing to his right, the other to his left. Temari immediately sent another gust of wind after the bunshin, and it took her a few seconds to notice that the Sasori she had aimed at remained entirely unaffected.

With a blank face, Kankuro twitched a few threads that gave the real Sasori just enough momentum to launch tiny, sand-colored darts from his knee at Temari's shins. In a real fight, those darts would be laced with either deadly poisons or, depending on the mission, strong paralytics. (Kankuro preferred paralytics to sedatives, because less shinobi had built a resistance to them.)

Right now, they wouldn't do more than sting because Kankuro had dipped them in nettle juice, his standard choice for spars. And judging by Temari's annoyed hiss, at least one of the darts had found their goal.

He smirked. Maybe, just maybe, he had also added a component that was going to make her skin numb for the foreseeable future. Knee-darts – success.

Sasori and its bunshin didn't stop at that minor victory. They continued circling around Temari, hopefully confusing her as to which one was real. She reacted by jumping high into the air, using her fan to attack and propel her further into the air at the same time.

That, finally, was enough to dispel the bunshin. Kankuro used the needle launcher implanted into Sasori's palm to send up a thin stream of senbon, but Temari easily waved them aside.

Just as well. With Karasu, there would have been a flamethrower in that location, dealing quite a bit more damage as fire fed on wind. But Kankuro had foregone placing any heavy weaponry on Sasori because he hoped to develop Sasori's jutsu casting ability to make up for that. He kind of regretted that decision for now, because he hadn't practiced anything harder than D-rank techniques yet.

Then again...

With a smirk, he sent the chakra for yet another jutsu towards Sasori. This time, it was even harder because Sasori had to continuously avoid Temari's wind blades from above. The occasional stray one even went so far that Kankuro had to take care not to be hit himself.

But the jutsu went through, and in a puff of smoke Sasori replaced itself with Temari's fan. It was a pity that Kankuro was too far away to see the expression on Temari's face upon suddenly holding on to Sasori, because he would bet half his salary that it was priceless.

Together, they plummeted towards the ground, Sasori trying to pin Temari's arms to her side, and Temari trying to reach one of her smaller fans. Kankuro used the time to hit Temari with a couple more nettle darts, but before he could initiate anything bigger she had regained her composure.

It was a bit disappointing that Temari was quicker, so before she could decapitate Sasori, Kankuro made the puppet separate itself from his sister. Not without gifting her with a couple of kunai to her face though. It served as enough of a distraction that Sasori could get away without any serious damage and leave behind some downsized exploding tags. They puffed into her face – once again not enough power to do any real damage – and allowed Kankuro to flip Sasori around so that he landed closest to her battle-fan.

She was panting harshly as she touched down on the ground. Kankuro made Sasori do the same, simply for the fun of it. Heaving chests always were good for pretending life.

"Ready to give up?" he made Sasori shout. Despite all his practice, it still sounded a tad monotone. He'd have to see that he modulated the voice a bit to simulate emotions.

Temari snorted. "Are _you_ ready to give up?" she retorted and, in the same motion, whipped out a second small fan. The resulting wind blades went considerably wide of Sasori, but had an astonishing precision in homing in on Kankuro.

He cursed. He shouldn't have stayed in one spot for this long. He had been overly reliant on his stealth and concealment jutsus, but it was evident that Temari had seen through them. In a real battle though this probably wouldn't have happened because Kankuro would have had his other puppets to serve as further distraction and as a shield.

Ducking beneath the wind blades, he made Sasori engage her again, always trying to force her away from both her great fan and Kankuro's position.

It was a serious pain in the ass to fight against a long-distance-fighter like her. She saw to it that he never came close enough to hurt her directly, and any projectiles she could wave away with a single swing of her fans. Additionally, the distance gave her valuable split-seconds of reaction time to any attack Kankuro made. He should have made better use of his surprise kawarimi, like unveiling one of the hidden blades he had installed in Sasori's arms, or use the poisoned stinger in its abdomen. He certainly had been close enough then to deal a decisive blow.

Time for another approach.

Sasori released one of its smoke bombs, resulting in a deep black shroud expanding from its location. Temari blasted away the mist quickly enough, but by then Kankuro had already hidden his puppet. Understandably wary, she stepped away from her previous location. At least she couldn't take to the air now with only her two minor fans. One headache out of the way.

A small application of chakra aided Sasori in moving underground, swimming through the heated sand without leaving any betraying ripples on the surface. Kankuro slowly made his way towards her battle-fan, but even concealed as he was beneath heavy layers of genjutsu, she spotted him. He had to do some hasty maneuvering to keep his limbs in one piece, hiding his smirk. As long as she was focused on him, she didn't watch for Sasori who was setting up for another hit. And he could afford to wait her out. Her legs had to be quite numb by now, robbing her of a large part of her mobility.

Then she directed one of her wind blades towards the ground, blowing up a huge cloud of sand.

At first Kankuro didn't realize what she had done, because neither he nor Sasori were close enough to be affected. But when he tried to get his puppet to move further towards her back, he cursed. The explosion of chakra had severed a large part of his threads, and Kankuro had to be closer than ten feet to reestablish the connections. He did have some control over Sasori, but by far too little to keep it useful.

In a last-ditch attempt, he once again sent a kawarimi down the two threads he still had left, hoping to replace Sasori with her fan to take it out of the picture for good. However, now just had to be the time when the jutsu failed him. Instead of replacing itself with the fan, Sasori merely produced a cloudy puff of excess chakra, drawing her attention to its location.

Before she could send another wind blade at the defenseless puppet, Kankuro revealed himself and raised his hands. "Stop!"

"What!" she shouted, chakra gleaming from the edge of her fan.

"I give up! You win." He certainly didn't want to spend another month on rebuilding Sasori just because he was too stubborn to lose a spar.

It was easy to admit his defeat, because both of them knew that in a real battle, Kankuro's lucky hit with the darts at the beginning would have killed her by now. And Kankuro could have used more of his puppets to aid both him and Sasori. On the other hand, she could have used her thrice-cursed weasels, too.

Well, maybe it was more of a draw than he wanted to admit. At least, until he became proficient enough in fire jutsu to cast them through Sasori.

Once he was sure that Temari wouldn't attack anymore, he went to his puppet to reconnect the chakra threads. It was quite a bit harder to reach the anchors through more than a meter of sand, but he managed. Then he made Sasori rise from its desert grave, shaking off most of the sand. He just hoped that Sasori's mouth hadn't opened accidentally when he had lost the the connections. Because sand grains tended to stick to the lubricating grease that kept Sasori's vocal apparatus oiled, and he'd have to clean everything out before he could do some of his other... exercises again.

In response to his fussing about Sasori, she scowled at him and limped over to her battle-fan. She inspected it meticulously, although what could have damaged the steel ribs and wire-mesh paper, Kankuro didn't know.

With another scowl, she gestured at her legs. "How long until it wears off?"

"Three to five hours, depending on how many and how deep they got you."

"Hn. We're doing this again tomorrow," she declared as she stalked off, not in a much better mood than she had been before. Hopefully Yuu-something would do his duty and get her laid before then. Otherwise, her frustration was going to be twice as bad as today, and Kankruo had noticed how she had barely held herself back from releasing the wind-blades at Sasori despite Kankuro's surrender.

He made Sasori look after her with a frown. Well, at least one good thing had come from the spar: he knew that the knee-darts worked. He had wanted to test the elbow-spikes and his newly invented Akahigi Kiki Sankaku, too, but he hadn't found an opportunity. Stupid wind abilities..

Absently, he made Sasori dust himself off. Sand rained off the faux-skin and from the artificial hair and from the clothes and from practically everywhere.

He sighed. To the workshop it was, because it sounded like some of the sand had gotten into Sasori's lungs. And some of the nail polish had gotten chipped.

Well, time for yet another exercise in control.


	29. Kakashi's Mangekyou

**Character:** Kakashi

**Prompt:** How Kakashi got his mangekyo. Make it dark.

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Dark, as requested. Those are actually two fills.

* * *

**This is the way the world ends**

This is the way the world ends.

In a Stone prison with a (friend) teammate and a hammer falling down.

This is the way the world ends.

In a lonely cell with a (friend) teammate begging you to end their suffering.

This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang, but a quiet crack of vertebra.

The afterlife is red.

* * *

**Recipe for Success**

First, there must be knowledge.

Knowledge of biology. Knowledge of chakra. Knowledge of transplants. Knowledge of what actually triggers the change. A myriad and one things, all need to be known to even think of making the change.

Then, there must be inspiration.

Inspiration, innovation, inventiveness. Whatever one might call it. The spark of an idea of how to make things so that there is no need for actual dead bodies. He has enough skeletons in his closet to count for three.

And determination, of course.

The will to go through with the plan. He dithers and twitches for two weeks, and the Hokage nearly imprisons him as an impostor because he is actually on time. On time, so that he doesn't have too much time to think. His eye waters more than usually. But he keeps thinking of how the second-to-last Uchiha had put him out so damn easily, and he keeps thinking of the world of pain and inverted colors, and eventually determination wins out. Nonetheless, he is shivering when he appears on Ibiki's doorstep one evening.

Last, there is endurance.

Knowledge, inspiration and determination have fled him a long time ago. He cries and begs and pleads, and it is still his fault that Obito dies. And when his eye still hasn't changed, Ibiki casts the genjutsu again. And he endures and endures as the grief and the guilt sink into him, until he is a dry-eyed, broken man with a tri-pronged star spinning around his pupil.

Ibiki keeps him for another two days to rebuild him and make sure that he won't go out just to kill himself. Nonsense, he tells Ibiki. Logic, says Ibiki. Eventually, he regains his determination, his inspiration, and his knowledge. Only then does Ibiki let him go.

In the end, he has one tool more at his disposal, and still the same amount of skeletons in his closet. Now, the real training begins.


	30. Idle Conversation

**Character:** Itachi, Pein

**Prompt: **Apparently, that one panel from the latest chapter (=539/540) has me shipping ItaPein. Can I has some?

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** Some gore. Depressing, undead people.

* * *

**Idle Conversation**

They were sitting where Madara had told them to wait. As shinobi, they had never talked to each other much, each knowing their duties without having to be told by the other. In death, as husks unearthed by the Impure World Resurrection, not much changed in that. They merely were richer for some additional truths they had never realized in life, and they were all the more jaded for it.

After all, both had been played by the same man. And common misery bred sympathy. Or friendship. Or however the saying went.

"You look naked," Itachi finally said.

Pein, slumped on the head of one of his summoned creatures, hummed slightly. "It does feel strange without the transmitters."

A small pause while Itachi cocked his head. "He will have you reattach them soon enough."

"Probably," Pein mused.

Bereft of physical strength from years of simply sitting on a chair to gather natural chakra, Pein's body was in dire condition. Even a genin would have little trouble fighting his body. He doubted Madara planned to use him as he was. Pein was much too valuable to be wasted like that.

A longer pause, as they simply waited. And yet again, it was Itachi who broke the silence. "What does it feel like?"

"Does what feel like?"

"Having your attention constantly split six-ways."

"What does it feel like to cram 72 hours in three seconds?"

Itachi nodded, satisfied with that response. It was not something he could describe, the sensation too alien to put into words. It felt like experiencing a thousand things at the same time, and yet experiencing them one after another. It felt like ripping open time to halt it for a brief moment, and yet speeding it up until everything passed in a blur.

It simply was an experience beyond words. Looking through six pairs of eyes at the same time had to fall into the same category.

Itachi looked at the stars, trying to judge the passing of time. Occasionally, the animal Pein had summoned shifted a bit, but none of the two ninja moved. Death had removed the last bits of impatience from their souls, leaving them content to keep waiting.

This time, it was Pein who restarted their greatly lagging conversation.

"I have found two receiver rods."

"You have?"

"They were in the cloak's pockets."

Itachi tilted his head slightly. "Madara?"

"Doubt it."

They sank into silence once again. A companionable silence that consisted of waiting, dark trees, and the occasional call of an animal. More time passed, and yet it was still night. Still dark.

"With sufficient closeness, I don't need a transponder to amplify my strength to reach them," Pein continued as if their conversation had never been interrupted.

For the first time, Itachi turned his head to fully look at the other Akatsuki member. Pein was still looking straight ahead, as far as Itachi could tell from behind. "Are two enough?"

"To transmit my consciousness? No."

"But?"

"But I might be able to cause pain. To cause slight hesitation."

Ideas spun in Itachi's mind. Split-second hesitation might not sound like much, but in most ninja battles, it was the deciding factor. "Permanently?"

"When I am close enough and focus on it."

Pein withdrew the two black rods and let them dance over his knuckles. A skill that required no chakra, merely dexterity and skill. He knew that Itachi had caught on, and yet he felt strangely lethargic. He belonged to the dead, not the living.

Finally, Itachi exhaled. "Where?"

It was unspoken that he was talking about where the rods had to be placed to be effective. With two, there was no margin for error, not when Pein was used to controlling bodies with six or more.

"Away from the face? Heart and solarplexus. The gates, if possible."

Wound Gate and Death Gate. A telling choice, and probably all the more effective for it.

Itachi hummed. "No being can live with those gates pierced."

"I cannot control living bodies at all."

But Impure World Resurrection didn't produce living bodies beneath the chakra forcibly anchoring a soul to its corpse, now did it?

There was no need to elaborate the rest of the plan. They knew they were thinking along identical lines, of planting any seed they had to defy Madara. The control seal might allow Pein to send distracting chakra pulses, as long as it didn't go against his direct orders. And, as Itachi had already mentioned – split-second hesitation might be the key to winning or losing.

The younger smiled slightly. "They are blunt on both ends, aren't they?"

In lieu of an answer, Pein tossed the two rods over his shoulder. He heard Itachi catch them, examine them with a silent hum. The night echoed with soundless ringing of a kunai being unsheathed, followed by an equally quiet grunt. At first one connection, then the other.

Pein exhaled with the feeling of something answering when his chakra unconsciously quested his surroundings. After living the better part of two decades as a multi-bodied being, it was... comforting to not be as isolated anymore.

His instinctive chakra pulse caused nothing as distinctive as a gasp or any other such reaction. Itachi was too well-trained for that. Nonetheless, Pein knew that he hadn't promised too much – the chakra signature behind him was scrambled briefly. Split-second hesitation.

The undead Uchiha had placed the rods well.

"This will take some getting used to," Itachi mused idly, rebuttoning his cloak. The two rods protruding slightly from his chest were barely visible beneath the heavy fabric.

Itachi's voice was as detached as ever, no detectable strain from the two wounds that would have been fatal on anyone else. Neither of them mentioned that it was something they did _not_ want Itachi to get used to, so that he would feel the full effect when push came to shove.

"Mmh." Pain settled again, content with the slight hum the chakra rods produced in the back of his mind.

Now, it only remained to be seen whether they could put their plan into effect. They would have to wait.

But that was what they had been good at while alive, and only become better at in death.

Waiting.


	31. Itachi Uchiha Facts

**Character:** Kisame, Itachi

**Prompt:** Take any joke you want about Chuck Norris, apply it to Itachi Uchiha and do something cracky with it.

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:**As the prompt demanded: crack. And the occasional bad word and somewhat... juvenile humor.

* * *

**Itachi Uchiha Facts**

Kisame was quite well aware that all high-level ninja had their own ideosyncracies. Some, like him, took to talking to objects. Of course, only with the highest-level ninja, like him, the objects (i.e. Samehada) talked back. There had been quite a debate a couple of years ago whether that made them more insane, or less so.

Other ninja took up some seriously questionable habits. Like that one Suna-nin ten years ago, who insisted that eating one scorpion a day was healthy and built character. Or that strictly vegetarian Kusa-nin, who took extreme care not to crush even a single ant in his way and wore a Mist rebreather so that he didn't accidentally inhale any living creature. Somehow though, his oath never to kill a living being managed to exclude humans, so the Kusa-nin was well-set for his life as a shinobi.

But, of course, compared to Akatsuki who were the crème de la crème of the ninja world, they were nothing. Kisame was deliberating whether Zetsu (seriously creepy plant dude who Kisame couldn't decide if he was one or two people) or Hidan (definitely round the bend to be eviscerating himself on a daily base) took the cake; even Pain's Godhood complex that revived six dead bodies couldn't compete with that. Well, maybe Sasori was still in the race. Turning himself into a wooden puppet shell until only his heart was left - that was some seriously strong stuff.

Compared to all that, Kisame's partner's ideosyncracies were absolutely negligible. A penchant for neatness - Itachi hated having creases in his clothes - and painted fingernails - Itachi could spend hours on giving them just the right finish. But that was that. Nothing else. Privately, Kisame had wondered a couple of times if Itachi was really ready to be part of such an insanely strong group as Akatsuki, because Itachi didn't really have any strange habits that counted in Kisame's books.

Well, except for one: he never, ever flushed the toilet.

At the beginning of their partnership, they had mostly spent their time outside in the wild, so it had taken Kisame quite a while to catch on to that. But after they had rested in inns a couple of times, there was no chance mistaking it: whenever Itachi used the bathroom, he never flushed the toilet.

The strangest thing though was that Kisame had never found any sign that Itachi had used it. Of course, he could hear Itachi doing his business inside, but after Itachi came out of the bathroom – without flushing – there was no indication that Itachi's business had passed. For some time, Kisame had even wondered if Itachi had somehow modified himself to eliminate the human need to void.

Finally, after more than two years of wondering and careful, covert investigation, Kisame wasn't able to help himself anymore: He broke down and asked.

"Say, Itachi, why don't you ever flush the toilet?"

Itachi blinked his eyes slowly in an otherwise emotionless face. "There is no need for such a waste of water."

Kisame could understand preserving water in arid climates, but Amegakure certainly did _not_ suffer from a shortage of rain. And they currently were in Amegakure, and Itachi definitely hadn't flushed the toilet on his last bathroom break, either.

But whatever. If saving water was Itachi's spleen, who was he to criticize that. There was one thing though that was still bugging him: "Then how do you manage to leave the toilet so clean afterwards?"

Itachi blinked once again, and didn't change his non-expression a single iota. "I scare the crap out of it."

That was the point where Kisame, perhaps wisely, decided to discontinue his line of questioning and positioned Itachi a couple of ranks higher in the strangeness-ladder. Maybe Itachi _was _in the right place amongst insanely powerful ninja.

Kisame just nodded, and they continued on their hunt for the Kyuubi-jinchuuriki.

(Of course, Kisame hadn't been able to stop himself from trying out Itachi's trick, too. He thought that he was plenty scary, but he never managed to get around the flush. In the end, it became quite clear to him that this was just the very first Itachi Uchiha-fact on an ever-expanding list of many.)


	32. Hate

**Characters:** Kakashi, Gai

**Prompt**: The first time he manages to convince Gai to quit being so damn chivalrous in bed, he feels it (_deep and aching and gloriously intimate_) for a week.

**Rating**: Hard R

**Warnings**: Not explicit sex, but damn close to it.

* * *

**Hate**

Kakashi has known Gai for a long (long, long) time. Indomitable, ever-cheerful Gai with the endless energy and the ridiculous challenges. And Kakashi has hated Gai nearly equally as long. (Why can't the boy leave him alone, doesn't he see he is not welcome? Doesn't he realize Kakashi does not care one whit for how often he can hop around Konoha on one leg only?)

That is why Kakashi saves him when Kakashi wears a second, white mask over the usual black cloth, and Gai wears red blood over the usual green spandex. Because he has hated Gai for a long, long time, and it would be too much of a pity to lose one more thing he has had for a long, long time (just like he has lost Obito and Minato and his father and one of his dogs and -)

Somehow (he doesn't know how) Gai still recognizes him in his delirium and becomes even more obnoxious afterwards. Eternal Rival, Embodiment of Honor and Skill, titles that Kakashi cringes under as much as he silently (deep down behind more masks than he could ever physically wear) preens at.

And still he hates Gai with a passion that grows with each challenge.

When they tumble into bed, it kind of is an accident (drunk and bloody and too much pain to care for who it is). Black mask and green spandex, and Kakashi is so broken that he is actually considering leaving ANBU. Nonetheless, it still takes two more years for him to actually break with the white masks. Two years that are filled with blind need and silence and a gentleness Kakashi wants to hit, destroy, _kill_. He doesn't want to be loved, he wants to be _fucked_ until he can't see straight anymore and until the voices deep in his brain are pounded into silence.

But Gai is gentle, and something (which is hate, hate, HATE) draws Kakashi back to him over and over again.

Not that Kakashi doesn't try. But it is only after Kakashi has begun healing from the broken white mask and the broken red eye and the broken blond teacher that Gai seems to become more open for suggestions. The first time he manages to convince Gai to quit being so damn chivalrous in bed, he feels it (_deep and aching and gloriously intimate_) for a week. The second time, it is even better when Gai learns just how much Kakashi can take, how much Gai can let go.

And maybe, just maybe Gai needs this as much as Kakashi has needed his gentleness when he would have loved nothing more but to tear out Gai's throat. (To stop censoring himself his unimaginable strength, because Kakashi is the genius and right there with Gai, and even if Kakashi isn't quite as physically strong he is just as powerful and knows how to handle a lack of control and restraint.)

More and more often there is a smile on Kakashi's face (and bruises down his arms his legs his back and that delicious ache inside), and maybe, just maybe he doesn't hate Gai so much anymore.


	33. Mary Sue

**Characters:** Mary Sue; Rookie 9

**Prompt:** "I'd drown the world in blood to keep you safe"

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** OC

* * *

**Mary Sue**

When Mary Sue came to Konoha, telling her sob-story of being kicked out of Mist for her miraculous dormant bloodline of Mangekyou-Byakugan, a doujutsu right on par with the Rinnegan, she was accepted with open arms. Of course, the way she fluffed her sparkling, green hair and batted her mysterious blue eyes at the hapless chuunin at the gate, had nothing to do with it. Neither did the fact that all guys immediately lusted after her, even those married.

It didn't take long, and she had her first boyfriend. Ninja, of course, because ninja were hip and cool and just all around awesome. (Not to mention that they had the best bodies, with the active life they led). He was quietly infatuated with her, and she thought the way he never took off his sun-glasses and refused to come out from behind his ridiculously tall collar, was cute.

However, the first time she found a bug in her hair – her precious, precious hair that she stroked a hundred times at night, just like her late mother had always told her to, sob, sob – she nearly broke into hysterics. And when she found out that her boyfriend actually lived with those things _inside_him, he had been her boyfriend for the longest time.

But, lo and behold, it didn't take half a week and a chance encounter at a ramen stand, and Mary Sue had yet another boyfriend. A mysterious white-haired stranger with a face-mask and a head-band covering one of his eyes, and he just radiated the bad-boy vibe she was so keen on. And of course he was a shinobi, because shinobi were hip and cool and just all around awesome. He immediately fell in love with her, showering her with the sweetest words she had ever heard. And she took it upon herself to cure him of his two disgusting habits, being late all the time, and reading porn in public. Not that she was very successful in the former, but the latter opened her eyes quite a bit.

Of course it was only by accident that a couple of pages fell open when she secretly hid away all his porn stuff, and it was only by accident that her eyes fell upon the smutty words written down. Once she actually read the sentences though, she didn't know whether she should gouge her eyes out or scream in horror: for they were the very same words she had found so sweet and caring coming out of her boyfriends mouth, spoken by a daimyou to a lowly whore. Naturally, after such a humiliation, he had been her boyfriend for the longest time.

Her next couple of boyfriends weren't much better. The regal Hyuuga with the mysterious white eyes demanded an heir as soon as possible (no, thank you, she wasn't a brood mare, and anyway – children were a far way off in the future, most certainly a long time after the story ended), vivacious Inuzuka wanted his dog to share a bed with them (she had her suspicions that he was secretly into bestiality), sunny Uzumaki turned out to be absolutely disgusting (he burped and slurped and farted all the time, when he didn't scratch himself in unmentionable places or came home all covered in blood and dirt and sweat), and Lee ate healthier than _she_ did.

But then He came back, her true intended, her heart-swarm, her precious. Raven locks standing up in a nonchalant but incredibly cool I-don't-need-no-hair-gel-cause-I'm-so-hot-I-always-look-delicious-even-without way, deep black orbs to drown in, and an angelic face to die for. _If_He ever smiled. But that was a project she did not hesitate to take on, for she was certain that, just as He was her one and only, she was His and He'd be most grateful to her for brightening his depressing life.

And if He told her to watch what she was eating, it was only out of concern for her health, not because she was a bit on the flabby side. And if He told her to leave Him alone, it was only because His tragic past had estranged Him from social contact and it was her task to get Him over that. And if He sometimes said strange things like "I'd drown the world in blood to keep you safe", it was only because He didn't know how to tell her He loved her, and not because he actually meant what he had really said, namely "I'd drown the world in blood _before_I keep you safe."

So were the ways of love, and they were perfect.

Until the day she discovered Him on His training ground, getting pounded by disgusting Uzumaki. And not the sparring kind of pounding, either.

Poor, radiant Mary Sue with the legendary but dormant bloodline of the Mangekyou-Byakugan and the fluffy green hair and the sparkling blue eyes, did the only thing she could in such a moment: she fainted in the hopes that when she woke up, the world would make sense again.


	34. Meditation

**Characters:** any

**Prompt:** He felt like he could run forever

**Rating:** PG

**Warning:** Cryptic Stream-of-consciousness

* * *

**Meditation  
**

Running.

He was running over stick and stones, feet pounding on dirt, lungs working hot and steady like bellows.

Run, run, run.

The cool morning air changed into afternoon heat, shaded by thick leaves and tree canopy. And he was still running, eyes fixed forward in a sort of tunnel-vision that was damn close to meditation. Sweat was streaming down his forehead, and as he wiped it away he ignored the tiny tinge of red against his fingers. His long black gloves reached almost to his elbows anyway, so it was easy to just not see any colors tainting his skin. And he was looking forward, not down on his bare upper arms and the bloody red tattoo on his shoulder.

No, he was running.

Yet another soldier pill shoved between mask and face, and the electric crunch gave him another two-hundred miles. The weight on his back had transcended time and space a long time ago, until it simply became a constant that _was_. Flexing muscles, putting one jogging step in front of the other, and delirious meditation focused on one thing:

run run run run RUN!

'Back then' had vanished into the mists of the past; the goal had become a distant future. Everything was swallowed by the ginormous moloch of the present, of running and breathing and right and left and right again in an endless repetition.

Hydrate while running.

Small swallows, taking care that the weight on his back didn't move, that he didn't stop and didn't cough and didn't do anything that would break his zen-like meditation that kept the pain away. Because he felt like he could run forever. Ever and ever and ever again. Needed to run forever. So he did. And the miles beneath his shoes melted away just like the time around him melted away and the air turned into dusk and night and moon.

Run. Now.

Live.


	35. Grocery Shopping

**Characters: **Iruka, Kakashi

**Prompt: **"Kakashi sensei," he tried to keep his voice even. "...Are you alright?"

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** Insanity

* * *

Grocery Shopping

It was a nice and beautiful Saturday morning when Iruka realized to his horrified dismay that, while he did have rice and soy sauce in nearly obscene quantities, the rest of his cupboards and especially his fridge were distressingly empty. Not even his secret stash of Cup Ramen had survived – not that that was a strange occurrence, seeing as Naruto had come by and visited him the day before. That boy was a menace to all noodly goods, especially those preserved in styrofoam or plastic cups.

A second and a third look around his kitchen sadly did not reveal any hidden morsels he might have overlooked the first time round. There was nothing to find. Sadly, no way Iruka hemmed and hawed, he always came to the same conclusion: he had to go shopping. So, armed with some money, a hastily scrawled grocery list and a growling stomach, Iruka went to rectify this dire situation post haste.

His first stop normally would have been the market; however the term of "Saturday _morning_" left quite a bit of space for interpretation. When Iruka had gotten up, it had only been morning in the sense that it hadn't been noon quite yet; and his dithering over his terrible food scarcity had quite securely moved the hour hand of his kitchen clock past the big fat twelve. After investing some additional time to make himself halfway presentable, most of the farmers had already closed their stands and so Iruka was forced to detour to the only grocery store in all of Konoha: Murakami's.

While Murakami's did have everything from dried fish to pickled vegetables to rice and cup ramen, his choice in fresh vegetables was sadly lacking. However, in lieu of better opportunities, Iruka had to make do and not bite off the head of every single one of his students' parents he encountered on his way, who apparently all thought it was such a splendid afternoon to cross his way and greet the teacher of their disease-ridden offspring.

Yes, Iruka might have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. And Gai running by on his hands instead of his feet certainly didn't improve his mood.

But, no matter what, nearly nothing could shatter his iron control over his temper. Nearly. Yet another familiar figure strolling through Murakami's, dangling a plastic shopping basket from his hand, certainly tested Iruka's ability of pretending he hadn't rolled out of bed on the wrong side.

"Kakashi-sensei," he tried to keep his voice even. "... Are you alright?"

Well, that wasn't quite what he had wanted to say – _What the hell are you doing_ might have been more appropriate, even if young and impressionable ears were presently hanging on to their mothers and staring at the formerly mentioned jounin. However, apparently censoring his language had become one of Iruka's knee-jerk reflexes, just like ducking erasers, gum-wads, flour traps and blunt shuriken but not their live counterparts.

The copy-nin though didn't seem to appreciate his restraint. Instead, he stretched on his tip-toes and just barely reached the can of tomato sauce on one of the mid-level shelves. "Oh, fine, fine. Just fine," he muttered before dropping the can into his shopping basket and lowering himself to his heels with a grunt of effort. Then he made sad puppy eyes at more food that definitely was out of his reach for the moment. "Hey, Iruka-sensei, could you hand me two of those bags of dried seaweed? Can't quite reach down there at the moment."

Admittedly, the request did make more sense when one considered the general situation. No, the shelves were not unreasonably high that a tall person like Kakashi might barely reach mid-level; Kakashi had not shrunk, and neither did he suffer from a wrenched back or any similar ailment that would prevent him from bending down to the lower shelves. The only problem was the shop's high ceiling – and the fact that Kakashi had apparently confused it with the ground. Feet sticking to said ceiling approximately three and a half meters above floor level and hanging down like a demented stalagtite, not even Hatake Kakashi was tall enough to reach products less than a meter off the ground. And thus his strange-seeming request for Iruka's aid.

Well, alright, the request _was_ strange, but at least it made sense.

Sort of.

Iruka put his hands on his hips and stared down – or up, as the case might be argued – Kakashi's nostrils that were hanging right at Iruka's eyelevel. Not that he could see Kakashi's nostrils, because the ever-present mask was in the way. But he would bet half his salary that they were turning as unhealthy a red as the rest of Kakashi's face from the inverted blood flow.

He tapped his foot impatiently "And just why can't you get it yourself?"

Kakashi shrugged, which made his jounin vest slide even higher due to gravity, the tall collar nearly swallowing his entire face before Kakashi tugged it down again with his empty hand. "Well, casting wire-snare techniques is kind of hard when you've only got one hand." He jingled the shopping basket that dangled from his other hand somewhere beneath his head. Or above, depending on the perspective. "And Murakami-san might have something against me using wired kunai."

A third voice yelled from the end of the isle, "Damn right I do! It's enough that I've got to put up with that weird-ass ninja-shit you crazies are doing; but I won't have any holes in my ware!"

Ouch! Apparently Iruka hadn't been the only one to get up on the wrong side of the bed. Murakami's incensed speech led to mothers hastily covering the ears of their young and impressionable offspring, which of course was too late for the majority of the curses, and Iruka could look forward to hearing those curses shouted across the academy yard by Monday at the latest. Not that the brats didn't say those words anyway – and 'damn', 'ass' and 'shit' were the more harmless amongst them. It had taken quite some time for Iruka to beat into Naruto's thick head that mothers, crude sexual intercourse, Iwa-nin (alternately also Kumo- or Mist-nin) and swines were not meant to go together in a single sentence.

"You see?" Kakashi startled Iruka from his musings. "Can't use wire or kunai. So, could you please pass me the seaweed, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka stared at him a bit longer. "Why?" he finally asked.

Kakashi blinked. "Because you wouldn't let a poor, innocent person starve to death and I like seaweed?"

Iruka shook his head. "No, I mean, why can't you walk like a normal person?" Then a striking realization came. "Does it have anything to do with why Gai is running around upside-down, too?"

"It might." Instead of being embarrassed, Kakashi even seemed animated.

"Let me guess: a bet on who can stay off his feet the longest? Or, no, a bet on whose feet don't touch the ground the longest?"

"Got it in one."

Kakashi's mimic was hard to read upside-down. But it seemed like he was smiling broadly, which made Iruka snort in disgust. "I would have thought you'd take that as an invitation to be lazy all day, put your feet up and not move from your bed or chair the entire time. Not go grocery shopping like an insane monkey."

"You wound me, Iruka-sensei." Now _that _was definitely a pout, which vanished into reluctant admittance. "Well, I would have, if my flat hadn't been invaded by tiny, invisible moth-ridden pixies that like edible things."

"In other words: you ran out of food."

"...Yes."

Iruka just shook his head and tossed two packs of seaweed, the saltiest and stringiest kind he could find from the lower shelves, at Kakashi who expertly caught them in his basket even while he was upside-down. Then Iruka turned around and left the shop without having bought a single thing. He certainly didn't want to catch any of the crazy that was currently residing in it.

"Thanks!" Kakashi called after him.

Even though Kakashi definitely wasn't welcome, Iruka responded with the obligatory contrary before he hastily made his way out to the ringing of the bells mounted above the entry door. Eating out was sounding better and better by the minute; Murakami's would still be there and hopefully Kakashi wouldn't after Iruka had satiated his hunger.

It just was too early in the day to deal with this sort of insanity. And if Gai was there on Iruka's second attempt at shopping, probably carrying his basket with his feet judging by the impression he had gotten earlier, Iruka was going to scream.


	36. Jan Ken Pon

**Characters:** Yamato, Kakashi, ANBU

**Prompt:** Yamato and Kakashi face off with rock-paper-scissors (or jan-ken-pon, whatever). Either over something extremely serious or something extremely ridiculous would be awesome.

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** None

* * *

**Jan Ken Pon**

The ANBU team of four sprinted quietly through the night. They had set out a long time before sundown, and it was nearing morning already when Inu, the captain of the team, signaled for a halt. They had left the huge, sturdy trees of Hi no Kuni hours ago, so they couldn't cluster together on a branch. Instead, they hid in the shadows of the rocky mountain area, always in easy sight of each other and covering all 360 degrees of their surroundings.

_20 miles to target,_ Inu-taichou signed with large, slow motions that were designed to be read even in the abysmal lighting before dawn.

Cat, the new recruit on the team, had to squint a bit through the darkness, but he thought that _20 miles to target_ was what Inu-taichou had signed - because _2 men in tango_ didn't make much sense.

To be honest, he was quite glad that Inu-taichou had decided to stop here – not least of all because Yamato, the boy-man behind the mask of Cat, was sorely out of breath.

The mission briefing with the guy from Intel had given many details as to the target's location, the level of protection, and the client's preferred way for the target to leave this mortal coil: A rich merchant in the outskirts of Lightening country was supposed to be killed out on an open street by some random loon with a knife.

What the briefing hadn't mentioned though, was how the tasks were to be distributed amongst their team. And Inu-taichou had conveniently forgotten to mention that, too. Perhaps the other three had been together for so long that such discussions weren't necessary anymore. Perhaps Inu-taichou had forgotten that, instead of seasoned, experienced, and kind of deadish Hare, it was now young and insecure Cat with them.

Not that Yamato would ever call himself 'young' or 'insecure', but being fifteen and on his first ANBU mission – on probation at that – his nerves were quite highly strung at the moment.

Alright, to be honest he had no idea how he fit into the hopefully existing assault plan. Should he ask what he was supposed to do? But he was ANBU now, and an ANBU surely would be able to infer his role from the briefing and the team composition. He couldn't afford to show even more weakness than his less-than-stellar physical condition (just how much did the others train that a non-stop run of more than twelve hours didn't have them flop onto the ground like stranded fish out of water?). It all depended on how well he did on this mission and the missions during the next three months, whether he was going to become a full-time ANBU or not.

On the other hand – was this set-up designed so that he was _supposed_ to ask, and had already failed that test because of not saying anything? Or was he thinking too much into things?

Thankfully, Inu-taichou took that decision out of his hands by continuing to sign as exaggeratedly as he had before. Yamato did a brief double-take at the _nose sabotage_, which turned out to be _Rat sabotage_ on second thought. It was going to be Rat's task to create a convenient distraction, like blowing up a couple of buildings or such. Tiger got handed the perimeter task, making sure their retreat was covered and such. That left the more... personal distracting of the bodyguards and the actual kill for Inu-taichou and Yamato. And that was where Inu-taichou stopped signing, and instead held out a closed fist towards Yamato.

Yamato thought furiously what in the world that meant – it wasn't the closed fist of a 'stop all actions immediately and watch for the origin of the suspicious sound/movement/something I just heard'. It also wasn't the closed fist of 'careful, Iwa-nin in close proximity'. It seemed more like a 'let's bump fists' gesture. And that so didn't make any sense, because ANBU _didn't bump fists_.

Inu-taichou cocked his head and shook his fist slightly, apparently trying to get a reaction out of Yamato.

From the corner of his eye, Yamato could see Rat's shaking shoulders, clearly a sign of amusement. So he knew what was going on. And Inu-taichou kept holding out his closed fist, as if they had all time in the world. Which they did have quite a bit of, seeing that the target wasn't expected at the market before noon. But they ought to be in place quite a bit earlier to blend into the crowds and do some reconnaissance of the general layout of the streets in case the shit hit the fan. Tiger seemed to know what was going on as well, and Yamato the only one who had no clue. Had he missed some important part of ANBU etiquette? Was this some test of how green and new he was? Or some hidden code of sign language?

Finally, Tiger rolled his eyes so obviously that Yamato realized the movement for what it was even behind the anonymous ANBU mask in the dark of the night.

_Rock, Paper, Scissors_, Tiger signed.

It took Yamato three repetitions and nearly a minute to understand that this really was what Tiger had signed, and that it wasn't some kind of hidden code for 'approaching Iwa-shinobi with important documents and unusual weaponry'. He looked back to Inu-taichou, incredulous. Inu-taichou was still waiting patiently with his fist outstretched.

Did taichou honestly want to decide their jobs via a game of janken? What did the winner get? To kill the target, or to get out of killing the target?

Yamato was quite a bit scandalized to discover that Inu-taichou, who he had thought a very professional soldier, took such an... undignified approach to such a serious topic as mission success and killing. But everyone obviously expected Yamato to comply, so he held out his fist, too - slowly and with reluctance. He was ANBU, for heaven's sake, and ANBU didn't play children's games. Or so he had thought until now.

The atmosphere of 'finally' was nearly palpable.

Inu-taichou and Yamato shook their fists, and even though Yamato had never played janken before, he was at least familiar with the rules. His execution of the theoretical knowledge left something to be desired (he couldn't quite remember anything on the fly but the closed fist, and he doubted a 'ram' sign was acceptable for scissors), so he clearly lost to Inu-taichou's paper. Expecting the farce to be over now, he was uncomfortably surprised by round two and three; apparently Inu-taichou was aiming for best three out of five. Or he wanted to see how often he could beat Yamato, because Yamato had yet to trump over Inu-taichou's choice.

Honestly, it was getting ridiculous with the way Inu-taichou seemed to predict his every move (and Yamato had considerably expanded his repertoire by copying the missing signs from his captain's responses – even if he still didn't like using scissors). Sometime between the seventh and eighth consecutive loss for Yamato though, Inu seemeed to take pity on him and stopped the inane games. With a slow shake of his head, Inu-taichou signed for Yamato to play the loon and kill the target, whereas he would run interference with the bodyguards. Yamato got the feeling that he had disappointed his captain, but he didn't know how. Surely it couldn't be because he had lost seven times at jankenpon?

No explanation was given. Instead, Inu took off and finally – _finally – _they were on their way again, still under the cover of darkness and as if the brief interlude had never happened.

The mission went off without a hitch, even if Yamato nearly did a double-take at seeing Inu-taichou henged into a voluptuous dark-haired beauty flirting with the bodyguards. A corn mill exploded spectacularly five seconds after Yamato had stabbed the target in the chest, and in the ensuing mayhem and chaos, Inu and Cat managed to rendezvous with Rat and Tiger and flee without a trace.

Five hours later, safely back behind the borders of Hi no Kuni and getting ready to spend the night beneath a couple of hastily spanned tarps two hundred and forty miles from Konoha, Inu-taichou finally broke the silence they had kept for the past day.

"You need to work on your reaction time, rookie."

Yamato froze while setting a couple of traps. He had thought he had performed his role quite well as a mad loon running around with a knife and randomly stabbing people. And they hadn't even been pursued by enemy shinobi or been in any real fight by ninja standards.

"What do you mean, taichou?" he finally asked without looking up. He was still on probation, after all, and a bad report from Inu-taichou could destroy his chance of ever becoming a full-time ANBU member.

Inu-taichou clinically ticked off on his fingers. "Your recovery time from unexpected events is far too long, and even then you react in an uncoordinated and half-hearted fashion. You let such things derail you far too much, and your acting on the fly frankly sucks. So does your knowledge of common social behavior. That is why I didn't give you the job of distracting the bodyguards."

Not expecting such devastating criticism, Yamato stiffened and had to hold himself back from snapping something quite uncouth. Probation and all that jazz. He deliberately recalled that Inu-taichou was one of the best and longest-serving ANBU currently active and hadn't seemed particularly malicious towards him so far. Even though his opinion of the captain had taken quite a nose-dive with that game earlier that day, Yamato told himself that he was still not quite ready to believe Inu-taichou was saying these things merely out of spite. Especially since he couldn't deny that there was a grain of truth to taichou's words. Having been raised in Orochimaru's labs after all hadn't done much for his social skills.

He breathed in and out a couple of times to make sure his voice didn't waver. Then he met his captain's eyes – well, the eye holes of the white mask – straight and square. "What gave you that impression, taichou?"

"Rock, paper, scissors."

Yamato nearly choked on his spit. "Is that because I lost at a _game_?" _That you are going to throw me out of ANBU_, he continued silently.

"Not because you lost, but because of _how_ you lost. First off, it took you quite a long time to react at all to the unusual situation. Then secondly, when you chose to play along, your improvisation on the fly was quite amateurish. It was very obvious that you don't know the game very well, and your acting was poor and lack-luster. And third, if you have to copy your opponent's moves, at least do it right. Scissors goes like this," Inu-taichou held out his fist where he extended the index and middle fingers, separated in a slight V and pointed towards Yamato.

Well, Yamato told himself, at least now he'd be able to play janken when they threw him out of ANBU. And anyway, he hadn't been that far off by pointing a one-handed ram sign at his captain. The only thing he had missed out on was the spread fingers.

Thankfully, Inu-taichou saved Yamato from having to answer or respond in any kind, by walking away and giving a lazy wave over his shoulder. His hand was still locked in the 'scissors'-position. "Next time, I expect you to win at least one set."

An hour later, Yamato was still giddy that Inu-taichou had mentioned a Next Time. The next weeks, he religiously worked on his acting and social skills, and eventually he even saw a marked improvement. However, it wasn't until several months later at the end of his probation time – and the corresponding unmasking of the team – that he realized the true value of the speech: he had gotten advice on copying from the Copy-Nin himself.

The only thing he had yet to achieve was win a single game of janken against the sharingan master.


End file.
